As 2025 draws to a close, the Solana blockchain presents a study in contrasts. Its native token, SOL, trades near annual lows, yet the network continues to notch significant institutional, technological, and decentralized finance (DeFi) achievements. This divergence between subdued price action and resilient underlying metrics raises a compelling question about the asset’s current valuation.

Institutional Adoption Gains Momentum

A major structural development in 2025 has been the entrance of regulated institutional capital. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved several spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for Solana.

• Bitwise launched the first U.S. exchange-traded product (ETP) with 100% direct SOL exposure, BSOL, on the New York Stock Exchange on October 28, 2025. It recorded $56 million in volume on its first trading day.
• 21Shares followed with TSOL, which began trading on the Cboe BZX exchange on November 18, 2025, providing another regulated avenue for SOL investment.

Furthermore, treasury corporations have staked a minimum of 12.5 million SOL, representing over 3% of the circulating supply. Collectively, assets under management for Solana ETFs are approaching $750 million. These flows signal a meaningful shift in the investor base toward long-term, regulated participants.

Examining the Price Pressure

Despite these advances, SOL’s market price remains under significant pressure. Currently trading at $120.09, the asset is hovering just above its recent 52-week low of $119.47. It has declined 13.61% over the past month and sits approximately 49% below its 52-week peak.

This recent downturn is part of a broader market correction that has also impacted Bitcoin, a dynamic that typically weighs more heavily on alternative cryptocurrencies. For Solana, this price weakness coincides with a notable pullback in several key on-chain activity indicators.

A Closer Look at Network Activity and Revenue

One of the most discussed trends this year is the sharp decline in active users. Data from Dune Analytics shows the number of monthly active traders has fallen from over 30 million to fewer than 1 million—a drop of 97%. This steep decline has renewed debates about the sustainability of the network’s previous growth narrative.

Nevertheless, Solana’s financial performance remains formidable. In 2025, the network generated approximately $1.3 billion in revenue, placing it at the top of all blockchains according to CryptoRank. While this marks a decrease from the $2.5 billion earned in 2024, it largely mirrors the cooler conditions across the entire digital asset market.

The Total Value Locked (TVL) metric also tells a story of relative stability that contrasts with the price chart. Throughout the year, the value of assets locked within Solana’s DeFi ecosystem fluctuated between $7 billion and $12 billion. The current TVL stands at roughly $8.8 billion, slightly above where it started the year, having reached an all-time high exceeding $13.2 billion during 2025.

DeFi Dominance and Ecosystem Growth

Within the decentralized finance sector, Solana maintains a leading position. It continues to rank as the second-largest DeFi platform overall and consistently outperforms major competitors in decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes.

Since the start of the year, DEX volumes settled on Solana have surpassed $1.5 trillion. For context, Ethereum processed $938 billion in the same period. This disparity highlights Solana’s high transaction capacity and efficiency, even as its token price tells a different story.

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The network’s role as infrastructure for stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) is expanding. Stablecoin holdings on the chain grew substantially in 2025, now nearing $17 billion. Institutions like BlackRock are utilizing the platform for products such as its BUIDL fund, alongside other RWA-focused offerings.

Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has projected that total stablecoin volume across all networks could surpass the $1 trillion mark by 2026, a trend that would provide a favorable environment for Solana to solidify its position in this sector.

Security Initiatives and Developer Focus

The ecosystem is also proactively addressing future challenges. The Solana Foundation has partnered with post-quantum security specialist Project Eleven. Following an extensive risk assessment, a quantum-resistant testnet has been launched, aiming to prepare for potential threats from quantum computing and bolster the chain’s long-term security.

The Breakpoint 2025 conference in Abu Dhabi, the largest annual Solana event to date, underscored this forward-looking focus. It featured announcements of partnerships with major financial institutions and the expansion of the Helium network into Mexico and Brazil. The core team also unveiled new developer tools and infrastructure improvements designed to enhance usability and performance, efforts aimed at broadening the foundation for practical applications beyond speculative trading.

Community Sentiment and Retail Behavior

Interest within the crypto community remains elevated despite price headwinds. In December 2025, Solana led DeFi social activity rankings with 58,800 posts and 14.7 million interactions within a 24-hour window.

Data from Coinbase indicates retail investors have recently been net buyers. The buyer-to-seller ratio on the platform is 82%, with approximately 96% of customers increasing their SOL holdings on a net basis over the past day. This suggests a persistently positive baseline sentiment among individual investors, even at lower price levels.

Challenges and the Path Forward

The network faces clear headwinds, most notably the collapse of the memecoin trading frenzy. These assets drove a significant portion of traffic and revenue on Solana in 2024 and early 2025. Trading volumes in this niche have now plummeted by more than 90%, revealing how concentrated prior growth was in this speculative segment and how closely SOL’s price was tied to the memecoin cycle.

Proponents argue that memecoins served as a rigorous “liveness test,” demonstrating the infrastructure’s capability under extreme load and paving the way for more substantive use cases like stock trading and stablecoin solutions.

From a technical analysis perspective, the $120 area is viewed as critical support. Chart analysts identify a resistance zone between $134 and $140. Notably, around $1 billion in leveraged short positions remain open; a shift to positive price momentum could potentially trigger a short squeeze.

Looking ahead to 2026, institutional applications and infrastructure upgrades are central to the narrative. The planned Alpenglow consensus update targets finality times of 150 milliseconds, aiming to further boost network performance. Combined with the expanding ETF ecosystem, its growing role in stablecoins and RWAs, and the next Breakpoint conference in London, several concrete catalysts are in place that may help bridge the gap between its weak price performance and its relatively robust fundamental standing.

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