Hacker Exploits Solana-Based Project Raydium for Over $4,300,000 As the Protocol’s Native Token Slumps

December 17, 2022 The Daily Hodl

Raydium Exploiter Drains Millions from Liquidity Pools

December 16, 2022 The Crypto Briefing

Solana TVL drops 32.4% as FTX turmoil rocks ecosystem

November 10, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Alameda

Cryptocurrencies understood to have exposure to Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX, and Alameda Research appear to have been impacted the most.

The total value locked (TVL) on the Solana chain has plummeted 32.4% in the last 24 hours, as news stemming from the collapse of FTX has sent waves through the crypto ecosystem.

According to DefiLlama, at the time of writing, Solana’s TVL has fallen to $423.68 million, down 32.4% in the last 24 hours, a far cry from its all-time-high (ATH) of $10.17 billion on Nov. 9, 2021.

*Total value locked within the Solana ecosystem Source: DefiLlama*

TVL measures the total value of all assets locked into DeFi protocols. As TVL increases that means more coins are deposited within the DeFi protocols, and can indicate bullish sentiment, while a falling TVL shows that investors are pulling their funds out of the ecosystem for one reason or another.

The fall in TVL went as far as a 51.7% decline over 24 hours, however, but slightly corrected leading up to the writing of this article.

The Solana-based liquid staking protocol Marinade Finance has seen the biggest loss in TVL on the chain, having fallen 35.1% to $115.79 million within the last 24 hours.

Other major protocols on Solana have seen similar decreases over the last 24 hours, with automated market maker Raydium down 34.25%, liquid staking protocol Lido down 43.13% and lending protocol Solend down 63.07%.

Other leading blockchains have also seen decreases in TVL over the same time period, with Ethereum down 10.59%, Binance smart chain (BSC) down 9.68%, and Tron down 8.84%.

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of FTX and crypto hedge fund Alameda Research, had been an early investor in Solana though Alameda Research and cryptocurrencies exposed to SBF’s companies have been the hardest hit by the fallout.

Solana’s token (SOL), has also dropped heavily compared to its competitors, with the price falling 40.53% to $13.38 over the last 24 hours.

The token had briefly risen after news that Binance might end up acquiring FTX, but dropped after Binance backed out of the deal citing allegations of consumer funds being mishandled and an investigation from regulators.

Despite the recent challenges facing SOL, co-founder of Solana Labs Anatoly Yakovenko has reiterated his bullish stance on the network despite recent losses.

He pointed to the quality of builders and recent network-level improvements as big positives in a Nov. 9 tweet.

1/ I said this on stage at Breakpoint just a few days ago – the builders on Solana are second to none, and the projects they're building can often only be built on Solana.
— toly (@aeyakovenko) November 9, 2022

Throughout Solana’s annual conference, a range of announcements were made including a partnership with Google Cloud, the launch of the Solana App Store, and an upcoming smartphone.

Crypto Exchange Coinbase Adds Two Ethereum-Based Altcoins and One Project Built on Solana to Listing Roadmap

July 17, 2022 The Daily Hodl

TVL, network outages, or derivatives: What’s behind Solana’s (SOL) 60%+ drop?

January 31, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

SOL price is more than 60% away from its all-time high and data shows that it's not the network outages but the loss of territory to competing chains driving the correction.

The past couple of months have not been kind to cryptocurrencies. The sector's aggregate market capitalization plunged 50% from a Nov. 10 peak at $2.87 trillion to the current $1.44 trillion. Solana's (SOL) downfall has been even more brutal, presently trading at $88 after a 66% correction since its $260 all-time-high.

Pinning the underperformance exclusively to the recent network outages seems too simplistic, and it doesn't explain why the accelerated decoupling over the past week, so let's take a look at what might be going on.

*Solana/USDT at FTX (blue) vs. Total crypto capitalization (orange). Source: TradingView*

The Solana network suffered four incidents in the span of a few months. According to the project's developers, a sudden spike in the number of computing transactions caused network congestion which crippled the network.

Interestingly, the network struggles with congestion since the developers advertise a 50,000 transaction per second (TPS) capacity. The latest incident on Jan. 7 has been attributed to a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, but data shows us that network attacks are less relevant than dApps use.

Cyber Capital chief investment officer Justin Bons criticized the network's security, mentioning that DDoS can be used to "temporarily gain proportional-staked control over the network by attacking other stakeholders."

Sergey Zhdanov, chief operating officer of crypto exchange EXMO UK, also said DDoS attacks and similar outages "don't really influence the trust of the network" and should be disregarded. Zhdanov makes a point comparing Ethereum network fees surpassing $50 as a similar hiccup, but not significant enough to cause investors to abandon it for good.

Solana's main decentralized application metric started to display weakness earlier in November after the network's total value locked (TVL), which measures the amount deposited in its smart contracts, began to linger at $15 billion.

*Solana network Total Value Locked, USD. Source: DefiLlama*

Notice how Solana's dApp deposits saw a 44% decrease in 3 months, as the indicator reached its lowest level since Sept. 8. As a comparison, Fantom's TVL currently stands at $9.5 billion, a 79% increase in 3 months. Another dApp scaling solution competitor, Terra, saw a 60% TVL hike to $16 billion.

Not even the $10 million raised by Solana's decentralized finance (DeFi) application Hubble Protocol in early January was enough to recover investors' confidence. Crypto heavyweights like Three Arrows, Digital Currency Group, Delphi Digital and Crypto.com Capital backed the launch of the crypto-backed stablecoin and zero-interest borrowing platform.

TVL and the number of active addresses dropped

Total value locked is no longer the primary metric that reflects strong fundamentals, meaning a 66% price correction has other factors at play than just a reduced TVL. To confirm whether dApps use has effectively decreased, investors should also analyze the number of active addresses within the ecosystem.

*Solana dApps 30-day on-chain data. Source: DappRadar*

As shown by DappRadar data on Jan. 28, the number of Solana network addresses interacting with most decentralized applications dropped by 18% to 32%, except for the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden.

The lesser interest on Solana dApps was also reflected in its futures open interest, which peaked at $2 billion on Nov. 6, but recently faced a steep correction.

*Solana futures aggregate open interest. Source: Coinglass*

The above chart shows how derivatives traders' interest in Solana plunged 75% in less than 3 months. That is especially concerning because a smaller number of futures contracts might reduce the activity of arbitrage desks and market makers. For example, it is common for participants to self-limit their exposure to 20% of the asset volume or open interest.

Derivatives data could be a consequence, but not the cause

It's probably impossible to pinpoint the correlation and causation between SOL's price drop, the decrease in the network's dApps use, and the fading interest from derivatives traders. However, none of those indicators point to a price recovery anytime soon.

The data above suggests that Solana holders should be less concerned about momentary outages and focus on the ecosystem's use versus competing chains. As long as the ecosystem remains healthy, investors have no reason to lose trust due to temporary network outages.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Did Solana Suffer Another Network Outage?

December 10, 2021 The Crypto Briefing

Solana reportedly hit by DDoS attack but network remains online

December 10, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The Solana blockchain has reportedly suffered another DDoS attack that temporarily clogged the network, however the network appeared to remain online.

Solana's blockchain performance was reportedly hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack over the past 24 hours, however the network appears to have remained online throughout.

A DDoS attack generally refers to a large number of coordinated devices, or a botnet overwhelming a network with fake traffic to take it offline.

This wouldn't be the first time Solana has suffered this issue, with Cointelegraph reporting in September that the network suffered a 17-hour-outage due to mass botting activity for an initial DEX offering (IDO) on Solana-based DEX platform Raydium.

The latest DDoS attack was highlighted by Solana-based NFT platform Blockasset on Dec. 9 around 3 pm UTC, after it noted that:

“We are aware tokens are taking a long time to distribute. The Solana chain is being overloaded with DDoS attacks which have clogged the network causing delays.”

Solana-focused infrastructure firm GenesysGo also reported on the matter, stating that the validator network was experiencing issues with processing transaction requests, but called for calm as it attributed the problem to “growing pains.”

The #Solana validator network is experiencing issues this morning. TPS issues as the network works to process txn requests.
Remember, this is blockchain If your txn ID went through then it’s not lost, just pending. Growing pains is all! pic.twitter.com/2Zfagq092M
— GenesysGo.sol - Shadowy Super Coder DAO (@GenesysGo) December 9, 2021

At this stage, the nature of the incident is unclear as Solana Foundation is yet to publicly confirm any attacks, while Status.Solana shows that the network has not suffered any outages and is fully operational at the time of writing.

However multiple accounts on Twitter asserted that Solana suffered a global outage, with Verbit CEO Roy Murphy (and BSV proponent) stating that “Solana crashed again and is currently offline. Engineers are looking into ‘rebooting the system.’ Seriously, you can't make this shit up!”.

Earlier today members of the r/Solana subreddit attributed the network clogging to another IDO launch on Raydium, with user “u/Psilodelic” writing a post titled “Why do Raydium IDOs clog the Solana network and what is being done about this?”.

“My biggest concern about Solana right now is the performance impact during high volume activity connected to Raydium IDOs and launches. Literally every single performance issue in the past 6 months, including the 17-hour outage, has been a result of a launch on Raydium,” they wrote.

In response, one of the group’s moderators “Laine_sa” didn’t explicitly confirm if the Solana’s network’s issues were once again Raydium related, but did note there have been concerted “stop gaps” put in place to keep Solana online since the DDoS attack from September:

“Right now there's a stop-gap in place that prioritizes vote transactions to prevent a full crash, there are additional changes to compute limits and fees relating to this in the works but it's not a quick fix that can be rolled out in a few weeks which is why it's taking time. It's being looked at however.”

Cointelegraph has reached out to multiple Solana developers for comment on the DDoS attack, and will update the story if they respond.

According to data from Coingecko, the price of Solana (SOL) has dipped 6.4% over the past 24 hours to sit at $182.79 at the time of writing. Amid a pullback across most of the top crypto assets, SOL has fallen 26.1% over the past 30 days.

Expanding ecosystem and $1.86B futures open interest back Solana’s $250 target

October 26, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Expanding ecosystem and .86B futures open interest back Solana’s 0 target

Coin Telegraph

Derivatives data shows institutional demand remains strong for SOL, and on-chain data points to a rally to $250.

Solana (SOL) price is meeting resistance near its all-time high again, but solid fundamentals and the impressive growth of its decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFT) ecosystem are likely to drive the altcoin above $250 before year-end.

*SOL/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView*

Institutional investor interest is likely a key factor behind Solana’s impressive 490% gain since August. For example, SOL is the fourth largest Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund ($BITW) component, which overall is a $1.3 billion over-the-counter tradable market instrument.

Traders should remember that this event is not necessarily positive since futures contracts require both a buyer (long) and a seller (short). Nevertheless, the increasing interest allows even more substantial players to participate.

DeFi is gaining traction

Solana’s two most prominent decentralized finance projects are decentralized exchanges with built-in yield generation programs and they hold nearly $2 billion total locked value each.

Saber (SBR) is an automated market maker (AMM) protocol that trades between stable pairs and synthetic assets and provides yields for the platform’s liquidity providers. Meanwhile, Raydium offers a decentralized exchange, yield farming, and liquidity pools.

Evidence of institutional investors’ appetite for Solana was the $12 million weekly inflow in mid-October, as reported by CoinShares recently. In the same week, the United States registered branch of FTX exchange announced support for the Solana blockchain, enabling users to trade, deposit and withdraw NFTs that conform to the Metaplex token standard.

SOL futures open interest reached a record-high

This positive newsflow has been reflected on Solana’s derivatives markets, as depicted by the aggregate futures open interest data below:

*Solana futures aggregate open interest. Source: Bybt.com*

The indicator reached a record-high $1.86 billion on Oct. 25, which is a 123% increase in 30 days. To put things in perspective, Cardano (ADA) and Polkadot (DOT) currently hold a $900 million futures open interest.

Traders should acknowledge that this event is not necessarily positive since futures contracts require both a buyer (long) and a seller (short). Nevertheless, this increasing interest allows even more substantial players to participate.

Another positive factor is that DeFi protocols maintain a $13.5 billion total value locked (TVL) even though the sector took a substantial hit after the 17-hour network outage during Sept. 14 and Sept. 15.

*Total value locked (TVL) on Solana in USD. Source: Defillama.com*

The Solana Foundation stated that bots spammed the network as Grape launched its IDO on the Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Raydium. That activity overwhelmed the processing capacity with a transaction load of 400,000 per second, requiring a coordinated hard fork by validators to ignore the spam requests.

$250 seems closer than ever for SOL

VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro also began to detect a bullish outlook for SOL on Oct. 20, nearly 24 hours ahead of the 15% pump that led to $210.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

*VORTECS™ score vs. SOL price (white). Source:* *Cointelegraph Markets Pro*

Data illustrates that the current number of tweets from unique accounts discussing Solana is 32% higher than the 30-day average. Tweet volume is one component of the VORTECS™ score that identified bullish conditions for SOL on Oct. 20.

As long as Solana’s ecosystem expands, the network remains a viable solution for DeFi and NFT applications looking for cheap and fast transactions. Both onchain and derivatives indicators signal that $250 SOL by year-end is totally feasible.

Non-Custodial Dex Platforms Continue to Expand — Curve, Pancakeswap, Sushiswap, Uniswap Lead the Pack

October 26, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Solana reclaims $200 — 3 reasons why SOL price is up 35% in seven days

October 25, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Solana reclaims 0 — 3 reasons why SOL price is up 35% in seven days

ADA price

SOL price continues to climb, with Solana’s TVL also hitting a new high of nearly $14 billion.

The price of Solana’s native SOL coin edged up on Oct. 25 in the wake of a marketwide rally led by Bitcoin (BTC), with the total value locked (TVL) on Solana hitting record highs and SOL’s price seeing a promising technical setup.

Bitcoin triggers marketwide rally

SOL climbed by more than 6% to hit an intraday high of around $214. The price of SOL is now up a little over 35% over the past week, pushing it closer to its record high of about $222 set in early September.

Bitcoin’s run-up to its new record high of $67,000 last week resulted in the total crypto market capitalization passing the $2.5-trillion mark, a new milestone for the cryptocurrency.

*Top 10 cryptocurrencies and their performance over the last seven days. Source: Messari*

That helped push SOL higher, with rival cryptocurrencies Ether (ETH) and Cardano’s ADA also jumping by over 10% and 1% in the past week, respectively.

Solana TVL hits record high

The SOL price rally also appeared as the TVL of all the decentralized finance (DeFi) projects built on the Solana blockchain reached a new record high of $13.53 billion, as per data aggregator service DeFi Llama.

*Solana TVL hits another high. Source: Defi Llama*

The most dominant DeFi project on the Solana blockchain is Saber , an automated market maker (AMM) protocol that enables Solana users and applications to trade between stable pairs of assets efficiently and earn yields by providing liquidity to the platform.

Its contribution to the Solana liquidity pool was $2.05 billion at press time.

Meanwhile, there are four other DeFi projects with a TVL of more than $1 billion. These include Raydium ($1.91 billion), Sunny ($1.73 billion), Serum ($1.69 billion), and Marinade Finance ($1.63 billion).

Solana also declared that it would add more DeFi projects to its list after the completion of its “Ignition” hackathon on Oct. 18. Users would need to hold SOL tokens to use these applications, to pay for transaction fees, thus raising the prospect of the token’s higher demand in the future.

SOL price technicals

SOL’s latest price rally came as part of a breakout move out of what appears like a Bullish Pennant. As Cointelegraph reported earlier, the technical outlook aims to send SOL to levels equal to the maximum distance between the Pennant’s upper and lower trendline around $85.

*SOL/USD daily price chart featuring Pennant breakout. Source: TradingView*

As a result, adding $85 to the breakout level around $158, the SOL price’s Pennant target is $243, i.e., almost $250. Meanwhile, a retest of the pennant’s upper trendline as support would risk invalidating the bullish setup.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

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