The development history of SOL (Solana's native token) is considered one of the most turbulent 'rebirth' cases in cryptocurrency history, starting from technical ideals, experiencing capital boosts, dark collapses, and ultimately returning to the peak through ecological innovation. The following is a summary of its key stages:

One, Origins and Technological Foundations (2017–2020)

1. Founding Vision and Technical Breakthrough

- Founded by former Qualcomm engineer Anatoly Yakovenko in 2017, aimed at solving Ethereum's high gas fees and low throughput issues.

- Innovatively proposed the Proof of History (PoH) consensus mechanism, combined with the Tower BFT algorithm, claiming to achieve 65,000 TPS and transaction costs below $0.01.

2. Financing Difficulties and Early Cold Reception

- During the Asian fundraising in 2018, the bear market had already overdrawn market trust in high-performance public chains, ultimately raising only $25.53 million (far below competitors like Avalanche and Near at the same time).

- Initial attention during the mainnet launch was extremely low, with network interruptions going unnoticed.

Two, Explosive Rise (2020–2021): SBF and Capital Engine

1. SBF's Key Intervention

- In July 2020, FTX founder SBF tested Solana's performance through dust attacks, confirmed its reliability, and decided to invest, launching the core ecological protocol Serum (decentralized exchange).

- SBF leveraged his influence to promote USDC integration and exchange support, causing SOL's price to rise from $1 to $259 (November 2021), with an annual increase of over 150 times.

2. Ecological Expansion and Data Controversies

- The hackathon attracted over 4,000 projects, resulting in the birth of star applications like Raydium and Oxygen.

- Exposed for TVL data fraud: The Macalinao brothers fabricated 11 identities to double count funds, resulting in 70% of TVL being inflated.

Three, Darkest Hour (2022): FTX Collapse and Trust Crisis

1. The Chain Reaction of FTX's Collapse

- In November 2022, FTX went bankrupt, and over 11.3 million SOL held by Alameda Research (Solana's largest market maker) were liquidated, causing SOL's price to plummet 96% to $8.

- The ecological cornerstone Serum became ineffective due to its dependency on FTX, with TVL dropping from $10 billion to $200 million, and multiple projects migrating to EVM chains.

2. Technical skepticism and community division

- The network experienced frequent downtime (over 10 interruptions in the year), mocked as the 'downtime chain'.

- Leading NFT projects Degods and y00ts announced their migration to Ethereum and Polygon.

Four, Rebirth (2023–2024): Ecological Innovation and Market Return

1. Vitalik's Support and Underlying Fixes

- At the end of 2022, Vitalik Buterin tweeted in affirmation of Solana's 'sincere developer community', boosting market confidence.

- Team optimized the verification mechanism, reducing downtime by 90%, and the staking rate rose to 65% (2024 data).

2. Meme Craze and DeFi Renaissance

- Starting from the end of 2023, meme coins like BONK and WIF exploded on Solana, with daily trading volumes on-chain DEX surpassing Ethereum multiple times (peak at $2.5 billion).

- Low-threshold token issuance platforms like Pump.fun and aggregator Jupiter propelled the number of active wallets in the ecosystem to over 1 million daily.

3. Enterprise Adoption and New Narratives

- Public companies (like DeFi Development Corp) hoarded SOL and operated validation nodes, achieving annual staking returns of 7–9%, driving institutional holdings over $100 million.

- Laid out DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure) and created a 'real-world interaction layer' combined with AI data collection.

Five, Market Capitalization of $100 Billion and Future Challenges (2024–Present)

- In November 2024, SOL broke $260, with a market capitalization surpassing $100 billion, a 30-fold increase from its lowest point.

- Cutting-edge technological attempts:

- Launched the Blinks feature, supporting direct transactions on social media;

- Exploring liquid staking derivatives (like Jito), allowing SOL staking while participating in DeFi.

- Unresolved Challenges:

- Regulatory risks (SEC has not approved spot ETFs);

- A surge in validation nodes may lead to a compression of staking yields.

Summary

SOL's journey is a mix of 'technical ideals + capital leverage + community resilience': from Anatoly's coffee night code to SBF's dust testing; from $8 in the ruins of FTX to a new high of $100 billion in market value. Its core turning point lies in breaking away from single capital dependency and reconstructing the ecology through diversified narratives such as meme culture, enterprise staking, and DePIN. If it can achieve a balance between technological stability and regulation, Solana may truly realize the vision of 'Only Possible On Solana'.