Celebrating Five Years of Solana
Solana, the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, celebrated its five-year anniversary on Sunday. Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko acknowledged the milestone, as did key projects like Phantom Wallet and Pump.fun.
Network Activity Decline Amidst Memecoin Fatigue
Despite the celebration, Solana’s network activity has been in decline, with:
- Active addresses dropping each month since November
- Memecoin launchpad Pump.fun seeing fewer tokens "graduating" to Raydium
- Saturday marking a record low of only 0.66% of tokens reaching Raydium
The decline in Pump.fun’s popularity follows a series of memecoin scandals, including one involving Argentina’s President Javier Milei.
Firedancer Nears Launch
Solana’s next major upgrade, Jump Crypto’s Firedancer, is expected to go live later this year. The high-performance Solana client aims to:
- Increase network resilience
- Improve transaction processing speed
- Help Solana reach its goal of 1 million transactions per second (TPS)
Originally set for Q2 2024, Firedancer is now expected to launch by year-end, with Helius Labs’ co-founder Mert Memtaz predicting a late Q2 release.
Solana is also a top contender for ETF inclusion, with several asset managers filing for SOL-based ETFs.
