Cryptocurrency owners on the Solana blockchain lost a record $ 4 billion

Editor’s note: not investment advice!

The Libra meme token scandal on the Solana blockchain SOL $172.52 Solana 3.37% Market capitalization $84.3 billion VOL. 24 hours $0.58 billion resulted in investors losing $ 4 billion after the token’s developers withdrew a significant portion of liquidity, causing a market crash and calling into question the reputation of the entire ecosystem.

The story began with a post by Argentine President Javier Milea about the Libra token, which he later deleted. This brief moment was enough to send the coin’s capitalization soaring to $ 4.4 billion. Nevertheless, the developers quickly took advantage of the situation by withdrawing $ 107 million in liquidity.

The consequences of this event were devastating not only for Libra investors but also for the entire Solana ecosystem. The value of the SOL cryptocurrency dropped by 20%, and the total blocked liquidity decreased from $ 9.15 billion to $ 8.26 billion. Messari researcher Matthew Ney expressed concern about the sources of Solana’s growth, questioning whether it was based on real technological advances.

According to Syndica, meme coins remain Solana’s most profitable decentralized application segment, generating more than $ 500 million in revenue from January to November 2024. This is almost twice as much as the second most popular category, Telegram bots, which brought in $ 300 million.

The scandal also affected the leading ecosystem projects. Aggregator Jupiter and market maker Meteora were suspected of insider trading. Although both companies deny the allegations, Meteora CEO Ben Chow resigned and Jupiter initiated an independent investigation.

Solana Labs co-founder Anatoliy Yakovenko suggested introducing a social rating system for meme coins to prevent similar situations in the future. At the same time, experts are divided: some believe that this will put an end to the massive issuance of useless tokens, while others, such as Pump. fun co-founder Alon Cohen, are convinced that the demand for speculative assets will continue.

The No Worries editorial team strongly advises readers not to invest their own money in dubious crypto projects and little-known digital assets!