The price of Solana (SOL) has dropped by 12% following the sale of $41 million worth of SOL tokens by Pump.fun, a memecoin launch platform. This substantial sell-off by a whale (a large holder of cryptocurrencies) has led to significant downward pressure on Solana’s price. According to reports, the Pump.fun fee account has been gradually offloading its SOL holdings, with the latest transaction amounting to over $1.38 million, sold at an average price of $134 per coin.
Whale activities, like those of Pump.fun, can dramatically impact market prices due to the volume of tokens they control. As traders closely follow these patterns, the selling spree is believed to have spooked investors, further accelerating Solana’s price decline.
The memecoin craze associated with the Pump.fun platform is also cited as a potential cause of the price drop. As users began mass launching memecoins, it seems to have coincided with a stagnation in Solana’s price momentum. Moreover, the broader crypto market has experienced a slump, with Bitcoin also down by 18% over the past three months, pulling correlated assets like Solana lower as well.
There is, however, some optimism for a potential recovery, as speculation mounts about the approval of a Solana Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) in the U.S. by the end of 2024. A Solana ETF would bring in institutional investments, which could act as a positive catalyst for the price