How Solana Meme Coins and DeFi SOL Pushed Above $200

Solana, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has surpassed $200 for the first time since April. This happened after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, triggering green candles across crypto markets and sending the SOL trenches into overdrive.

According to CoinGecko, Solana (SOL) is up 7.5% on the day and 21.1% over the past week to a market cap of $95 billion. Early Friday morning, the token reached its peak price of $202.55, its highest price since April 1, 2024.

This previous high was reached before the network’s killer app, Pump.fun, sparked the meme coin mania. In April, Pump.fun, the most popular token launchpad in crypto, was responsible for just 10,000 tokens per day. Since then, the meme coin factory has hosted a number of celebrity tokens, fancy livestreams, as well as an innovative “AI-designed” multi-million dollar coin.

With Solana hitting its April high, the Pump.fun trenches are also showing signs of good health. On Thursday alone, 32,000 tokens were launched, according to Dune dashboard data. And just this week, the protocol surpassed 3 million total coins issued over its lifetime.

This meme coin frenzy was largely motivated by the US presidential election and continued by the victory of the supposed pro-crypto candidate Trump. It became a joke among meme coin traders that they get their election news from the Launchpad dashboard and that a Trump win would be great for all portfolios.

During his campaign, Trump welcomed cryptocurrencies with open arms and won over much of the industry. This included a promise to end the “unlawful and un-American crackdown on cryptocurrencies,” create friendlier regulation, and encourage the government to hoard Bitcoin. These crypto-related pitches are the reason why the entire industry is booming following his victory.

This means that optimism for a Solana ETF has grown. CoinSwitch business manager Balaji Srihari said Decipher On Thursday, we indicated that the SEC’s stance on Solana may be softening, potentially opening the door for an ETF.

An ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) is a publicly traded investment instrument that tracks the value of its underlying asset. At the start of the year, both Bitcoin and Ethereum had US-approved ETFs with billions of dollars flowing through them. For example, iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), the largest Bitcoin ETF, manages over $17 billion in assets.

This type of investment vehicle opens the door for traditional investors who have typically turned away from cryptocurrencies due to their speculative nature and high barrier to entry. A Solana ETF would encourage the infusion of potentially billions of dollars by these types of everyday investors.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.