Solana: Will It Rise Again?

The downfall of Solana was massive, not because it stopped being a thing, and not because its promise was discredited — because the people who felt like they had a neurotic relationship with SOL watched it go down from astral planes into the middle of the doubts. Then, in almost cruel fashion, the recent jump up came similarly precipitously. The week that pushed the coin from the mid-seventies to the mid-nineties and briefly touched the centenary mark cannot be called a recovery in any polite manner. It was revenge.

Who of the few managed to buy the dip and scored sweet profit in the following weeks? Less than the screenshots suggest and more than the cynics say — most of the people who state they ‘would have bought’ are doing it in hindsight. If the honest truth must be told, the majority of the ones who bought were already disillusioned with the market enough to give up caring; the reckless were foolish enough to treat the situation as a discount. There is no honor in a winning trade, dear reader, and there is no victory in the losing one — only a lesson in impatience wasted on the too-late exit.

There is another category of the market participants who scored points during the recent rally — and they probably represent even more substantial numbers than the ones who bought the dip. These were the holders who never sold — and thus, when the time came to sell, they had nothing to sell. In an ecosystem where everyone proclaims judgment the moment a downtrend begins, the sheer persistence of the hodlers represents victory. There is no particular skill in it — but there also is no reward for it, outside of the pride in vindication. The week was an ordeal for the patience, to say nothing of the social stamina — and the reward was bitter for those who held on.

Solana really is the most outstanding experiment in modern crypto because it resists being anything singular. It gave the market throughput and actual consumer products — but also memecoins and a whole ecosystem of digital entertainment. It is a serious utility, but the frivolous is right there in the next tab. The coin really has both fun value and actual value, making people who are not prone to ‘crypto-core speculation’ get addicted anyway.

Born From Impatience

Solana did not start as a decentralized utopian experiment — Anatoly Yakovenko and his team wanted to make something that would alleviate the pain of waiting for the right moment to transact. The idea of Proof of History was not born from a belief in anarcho-idealism but from the annoyance of regular developers who had to build atop a blockchain that did not want to be built atop. Yakovenko himself stated that he grew very frustrated that one had to make applications that had to be ‘decentralized’ but were at the same time ‘unappealing to use.’ And the whole protocol’s invention was a proof that Yakovenko, and eventually the whole team, wanted to make a fast enough blockchain to not make users ‘wait to move.’

That quality is what gives the whole project its flavor, the uniqueness that attracts people to it — and repels others. Ethereum is the promised land for those who believe that a new kind of digital society is about to be created. Solana is the tool for those who find waiting unbearable. The two communities are entirely different, with different personalities — and these have been crystallized in the culture of each blockchain. If you are willing to look into the early tweets of Solana developers, you will realize that they thought of a ‘slow Ethereum’ as an unacceptable blasphemy. The whole ecosystem is made in this spirit; hence, when it fails, people do not think of an unfortunate technical impossibility but of a personal affront.

The community never gave up on the coin, not even for one day, and this sentiment was reflected in the recent rally. The outages that regularly plagued the chain and eventually led to insufferable delays were, to regulars of the ecosystem, an annoying possibility. But a possibility nonetheless; therefore, when the day came that the chain operated at peak performance and delivered the promised capabilities, users were not disappointed — they felt righteously vindicated. Humans do not fall in love with the promise of a fast and efficient blockchain; they fall in love with the feeling that they have already experienced its future.

The rival blockchains have always used the outages as an argument against Solana’s legitimacy, but for the community, these were merely growing pains that eventually paid off handsomely. A similar sentiment can be observed in the comments under articles regarding the recent difficulties. Solana’s users know that these are only setbacks, which means that every new incident only makes them more enthusiastic about the next big rally. It is not that they love the technology more, but rather that they love the feeling of participating in it.

It Kept Going Because Attention Needs a Stage

In between its downfalls and ups, the chain and its ecosystem kept finding new ways to stoke the attention. A consumer product here, an NFT collection there — and eventually, the whole memecoin boom, a space where Solana had been a major player, took the attention away from regular transactions. Every cycle saw different kinds of activity, but the overall theme remained the same: it always made people feel entertained.

This is one of its most important qualities — as much as it is a serious utility, it actively encourages users to participate in it. Other blockchains can provide security, smart contract functionality, scalability, or even censorship resistance — but only Solana creates the feeling of being right there in the middle of the action. Other blockchains make you a citizen; Solana makes you a performer.

Solana is, in many ways, the ultimate fulfillment of the ‘move fast and break things’ ethos: it is all entertainment, with no goal beyond fueling the next binge. Bitcoin is the cathedral, Ethereum is the parliament, but Solana is the carnival — and the carnival is always a place where people get addicted to something that is ultimately empty. But it is still entertaining.

The memecoins are an embodiment of Solana’s ethos, a kind of ultimate expression of its philosophy of being lightweight, fast, and entertaining. This is where ordinary users engage in regular trading, where influencers score points with their large audiences by timing their buys and sells right — but most importantly, where everyone gets to feel like they belong somewhere. There is genuine community building, with people sharing the same experience, the same joy of participating in the dumb things that crypto allows it to do. This is where fun turns into value, because people become not only traders but members; however, there is also a flip side to this dynamic, and that is the fact that value extraction takes precedence over ethics and long-term thinking. As mentioned above, regular influencers can use this environment to its fullest, as a way to boost their popularity and earn income in the process. The same goes for anonymous speculators: they take advantage of the memecoin frenzy to do whatever is necessary to profit from it. Regular users, however, are often misled into participating in the scene, where their only real gain is the ability to feel clever forty minutes too late. And now, all of the actors in this drama are looking to the next one, where they will again take advantage of the environment in which nobody really cares about long-term consequences.

This is why Solana’s ‘fun value’ always comes with the cost: people get addicted to the environment where entertainment is the sole point, but the longer they stay, the graver the consequences become. Influencers learn which emotions to manipulate, while anonymous ones use the environment to its fullest. And regular users get their ego gratified, but only to be let down when the price of their bragging turns out to be much higher. But the promise of the next binge always makes them return for more.

The world of memecoins is dangerous in that it takes advantage of one’s willingness to participate and then punishes them for it. It rewards speculation and teaches everyone else a lesson for being too late. It is the environment where people can feel part of a movement, but only up to the point of one single ‘unwise’ move. And yet, for all its dangers, it still remains popular with the enthusiasts who want to be right about things.

This is because such a world provides them with the status and validation: it affirms their worldview while simultaneously punishing those who have been wrong about it. In the aftermath of the Trumpcoin fiasco, everyone who had participated in it has been made to understand the painful lesson of why being ‘right about politics’ does not always mean ‘being right financially.’ The entire memecoin space has been a single coin in which the proponents of one ideology have lost most of their capital to the proponents of the other. And regardless of which side one was on, the long and grueling realization has been had that, ultimately, one was not as right about their predictions as one thought to be.

What the Latest Rally Actually Revealed

By late August, SOL was trading at the mid-nineties range after a roughly twenty-five to twenty-six percent increase from the levels at the mid-seventies. The volumes were exploding, with shorts getting crushed — and the price briefly peeking above the centenary level before settling down. The recent performance has been driven by the much-needed improvements in terms of the slot time, as well as the general speculation around the ETF. But these are only polite explanations for what really happened — because at its core, the rally was driven by behavioral patterns.

The long downtrend that preceded the rally has made many participants to adopt a very negative outlook on the prospects of the chain, and when the time came to deliver on this outlook, the shorts were massively in pain. This is the main behavioral reason why the rally happened — and it should not really be surprising, since liquidations are usually a huge driver of momentum for any asset. It was the perception of the bearish bias on the part of the shorts that has caused them to be very aggressive in their positioning — but they paid a very steep price for it when the rally began and their bearish bias turned into a liability.

Another important behavioral reason for the rally was the perception of shame on the part of the longs — and this might have been the biggest reason for the movement, actually. Solana has spent a prolonged period of time as the coin which everyone wanted to short, which meant that the longs never really had a chance to bask in the glory of their position. The rally served as a much-needed vindication for them and, by extension, an opportunity for revenge against the excessively confident shorts. This has manifested in a lot of longs buying the coin purely based on their beliefs, because they felt as if the opportunity had been right in front of them for too long. And when it came, it was not just a vindication but also a personal victory.

Who ended up profiting from the rally? Mostly the longs and the dip buyers, because the price needed to move upwards and these groups were the ones to buy at the lowest levels. This has resulted in massive profits for the holders, but it is important to note that most of the people who participated in the move were not doing it out of greed. The screenshots that have been flooding the crypto space in the wake of the rally are very real, but they are also a part of the propaganda necessary to drive the next one. The behavior of the market participants was very reminiscent of the memecoin space on this front — the opportunistic longs were capitalizing on the pain of the shorts and, in turn, fueling the next move. The reason why the rally happened was very clear: the longs felt as if their positions were mocked and disrespected, and this was entirely driving their actions.

Why Solana Keeps Seducing People Anyway

When asked why Solana is worth paying attention to, most responses will include mentions of its throughput, fees, developers, products, consumers, and so on. But these are all the same generic arguments that apply to any other blockchain, with the only difference being the specific technical characteristics. However, when asked why Solana is personally interesting, most people will mention some unique quality that sets it apart from the rest — and that quality is the ability to fulfill the need to feel consequential without having to rely on traditional institutions. In other words, the desire to engage in an active and entertaining drama without having to wait for permission from anywhere. Someone with a phone, a wallet, and enough determination can enter the scene and start participating in it — not just as an observer. And while Ethereum may offer a more solemn experience, it is only because it was designed to be perceived as something formal. But a chain is only as serious as the institutions that use it, and as such, Solana presents a different kind of opportunity.

Solana also appeals to the impatience of the market participants. This is because impatience is often regarded as a virtue in the cryptocurrency space, but only when it is combined with other traits. A person who engages in quick trades, only to exit just as quickly, is not being rewarded with massive profits — but they are being granted the satisfaction of participating and being right about things. The culture of quick in-and-out trading is being reinforced by the nature of the market. The opportunity to participate in an entertaining drama without having to wait for the slow-moving institutions to catch up is extremely attractive, and it is one of the reasons why impatient investors are choosing Solana over other blockchains. But the ones who end up profiting the most are not the impatient ones — they are the ones who combine impatience with the ability to exit quickly and with minimal losses. Most people learn this lesson the hard way, but eventually, everyone chooses between institutions and impatience.

There is also another reason why the young chain has continued to attract attention even after several cycles, and this reason is the fulfillment of the desire to feel ‘early.’ This is an extremely powerful incentive that often drives people to engage in various activities, and Solana has the advantage of making people feel early even when they are not. The environment is being engineered in such a way that everyone can experience the rush of the opportunity being seized in real-time. This is a feature that comes with several ethical issues, but it is also the reason why the ecosystem continues to thrive despite many challenges. Everyone wants to feel like they were right about something, and the ability to feel this way is the main reason why Solana continues to attract users. People can feel early about the products as they launch, about the events as they occur, and about the overall environment in which they participate. This is why the chain has so many users that keep coming back — every opportunity to feel early is a powerful motivator.

Compare this to the blockchains that provide ‘cleaner’ opportunities, such as the ones that focus on institutional investors. These do not encourage the sense of feeling early about many things, because the opportunities are tailored to the needs of the specific institutional investors. But as such, they attract fewer people since the opportunities are limited to only a subset of investors. Solana, on the contrary, is an equal-opportunity creator of feelings of being right about things — and this is why it attracts so many participants. Even the most superficial analysis will show that everyone that has stayed in the space was doing so because they felt early. But this is also a very dangerous sentiment to hold, because everyone that has left the space did so because they were wrong about something. And so, the ecosystem of the young chain will continue to grow in size, fueled by the desire of people to feel right about things even though they are usually wrong.

A fair assessment of the situation will show that the rally from the mid-seventies towards the mid-nineties has proven that demand will appear whenever and wherever there is an opportunity to feel right about something. However, the long downtrend that has preceded this rally has shown that the demand will be very short-lived once the opportunity to feel right disappears. And so, those who are now certain that the coin is on its way to a multi-year bull run will inevitably be disappointed, and those who have been ‘bearish for the longest time’ will end up looking ridiculous.

The reason why Solana will continue to retain relevance is the same as the reason why it has remained popular among market participants for so long: the ability to feel consequential, even when one is really not. And this is a powerful characteristic that fuels most of the action in the space. The actual reason behind this is that Solana has both value and fun — and the combination of these has proven to be rather difficult to quit, even with all of the disappointments. The value gives permission and reassurance, whereas the fun provides the necessary adrenaline — but the two together ensure that a person will always look to experience both. Those who provide value can count on the admiration of those that seek fun, and those who seek the latter can always depend on the reassurance of the former. And the price of the token is the metric that separates the two, as it is what allows them to measure the success of their relationship.

Will it rise again, or did it already?

When the adrenaline cools and money has to move across quieter rails, the practical habits still decide who keeps gains: a TRON Energy refill before a USDT payout, a quick recharge TRON Energy routine instead of burning value, and less drama around TRON fees when settlement cannot wait for another meme candle. Netts Energy Charge Bot is built for that unglamorous minute — manual charge for a single transfer, auto-charge to keep an address ready, or a short Energy purchase — so the boring network costs do not erase what the exciting week supposedly won.