Solana prices dropped close to 20% in under 24 hours to reach the lowest point in 2025.
Solana prices took a tumble on Monday, February 24, breaking through the $150.00 level and then extending losses as multiple bearish developments combined to fuel declines.
The native digital asset of the high-performance Solana platform reached as little as $137.77 near 6 p.m. EST, according to Coinbase data from TradingView.
At this point, it had lost close to 20% in under 24 hours, after rising to nearly $170.00 the night before, additional Coinbase figures from TradingView show.
‘Several Factors’ Fuel Declines
Analysts cited a range of different variables when explaining why Solana lost value.
“Solana’s recent price drop below $150 can be attributed to several factors, including the upcoming March 1st token unlock, which will release around 11.2 million SOL tokens, increasing selling pressure,” Joe DiPasquale, CEO of cryptocurrency hedge fund manager BitBull Capital, said via email.
These digital assets will be unlocked in relation to the bankruptcy proceedings for fallen exchange FTX, which collapsed in late 2022.
Smaller amounts of these tokens will be unlocked on April 1 (12,700 units) and May 1 (73,700 units), creating additional downward pressure.
Alex Lin, cofounder and general partner at venture capital firm Reforge, also commented on these developments via email, stating that “a looming token unlock event of ~11mn SOL tokens, valued at $1-2bn (depending on SOL price) is scheduled for Mar 1, 2025.”
“This anticipated increase in supply, along with future unlocks in April and May (albeit smaller), may be prompting the market to sell preemptively, fearing dilution and downward pressure on SOL’s value,” he added.
Falling Network Activity
Several market observers emphasized the sharp decline in activity that the Solana network has suffered recently.
Armando Aguilar, an independent cryptocurrency analyst, weighed in on this situation, providing his input through email.
“On-chain evidence suggests the declining active daily addresses show an exodus of activity from users. According to data from the Block, active addresses declined from 5.7M to 3.5M over the last four weeks,” he stated.
“As a result, DEX volumes have been hit and fees on Solana have declined as seen on Raydium vs fees a few weeks ago,” Aguilar added.
“Another major point to notice is that Solana’s stablecoin transfer volume went from ~$395B to just over $7B and solana application revenue went from a high of $58.4M on January 20th to $4.5M on February 23rd,” he continued, citing data from Blockworks Research.
Broader Crypto Market Downturn
Some analysts highlighted the widespread declines that digital currencies have been suffering lately. At the time of this writing, 7 out the top 10 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap were in the red over the last 24 hours, with major stablecoins USDC and tether being largely unchanged.
“The broader downturn in the cryptocurrency market, along with negative funding rates indicating a higher number of investors betting against SOL, has also contributed to the drop in price,” said DiPasquale.
Lin also spoke to these widespread declines, stating that “Solana is joined by several other assets that are taking a significant hit due to macroeconomic variables.”
Further, he emphasized how the mindset of investors has taken a hit lately, claiming that “there is a broader bearish sentiment across the market.”
Reputational Risk
Another major development cited as contributing to Solana’s recent declines is a handful of unfortunate events that have taken place recently, including the quick rise and fall of LIBRA coin, which managed to rack up a value of more than $4 billion but then lost over 90% of its value.
Lin spoke to this situation, as well as others, stating that “another factor could be tied to specific events impacting Solana’s ecosystem that occurred earlier this month, suggesting a decline in network activity and trust, potentially linked to high-profile scams or rug pulls associated with tokens launched on Solana.”
“For ex., the $LIBRA launch crashed from a $4.6bn market cap to
“Following the Bybit hack reported several days ago, the NK Lazarus Group behind the incident leveraged Solana memecoins to launder the $1.4bn, further eroding confidence,” Lin added.
Technical Analysis
Some of the market experts who offered input for this article singled out some key technical levels for Solana’s SOL token.
“Solana has also been having a rough time since hitting all time high of ~$295 and has officially broken down below $154 support,” the TikTok influencer who goes by Wendy O said via email.
Aguilar contributed by highlighting important levels of support and resistance.
“The next lower support levels are around the high $130s and if breached, we would see Solana retrace to $118-122. On the resistance front, the next upper level is in the mid $160s and if breached, Solana could regain the high $170s range.”
Tim Enneking, managing partner of Psalion, pointed out an even lower support level, asking whether the $100 will hold, considering all the bearish developments.
Disclosure: I own some bitcoin, bitcoin cash, litecoin, ether, EOS and SOL.
