Solana's 2025: From TRUMP Meme Coin Momentum to Mainstream ETF Adoption
Solana began 2025 with significant momentum, spurred by the launch of the TRUMP meme coin on January 17, 2025, which coincided with both SOL and the token reaching all-time highs around January 19, with SOL hitting $293.31.
However, by December 15, 2025, SOL's price had declined to $127.70, approximately 56% below its peak, while the TRUMP token was about 93% below its peak. The price also saw a notable drop to $105.77 as of April 6, 2025, roughly 64% below its ATH.
In May 2025, Solana introduced a consensus upgrade named Alpenglow, expected to improve transaction finality by at least five times. By September 2025, the upgrade had garnered 98% validator support, with a testnet planned for December 2025 and a mainnet rollout slated for Q1 2026. Developers emphasized the performance gains expected from this upgrade.
Public Solana treasury activity also became evident in 2025. In April, Janover/DeFi Development Corp and Upexi began aggregating SOL into corporate treasuries, collectively holding over 4 million SOL—approximately 2 million SOL per treasury, valued at about $284 million each.
September 2025 saw Forward Industries acquire nearly 7 million SOL using proceeds from a $1.65 billion private investment in public equity (PIPE), highlighting increased decentralized autonomous treasury (DAT) activity alongside these SOL treasuries. However, SOL Strategies noted concerns regarding the sustainability of DAT models amid the evolving ETF landscape.
In late October 2025, both spot and staking SOL ETFs received approval, with Bitwise BSOL attracting over $69 million on debut. Additional ETFs including TSOL, GSOL, FSOL, VSOL, and a 2x leveraged SOL ETF were also approved. This led to a 21-day streak of net inflows.
By mid-December 2025, SOL ETFs had accumulated over $600 million in net inflows, according to SoSoValue, signaling expanding access to Solana for traditional market investors through these data access tokens (DATs) and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This trend illustrates Solana's growing integration within broader financial markets throughout 2025.
