Solana came in hot with a clean 22% gain this week (April 8-15), buoyed by President Trump’s announcement of a temporary 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs.
TL;DR
- Solana rises 22% to $132, TVL climbs to $7 billion
- SOL comes to OpenSea
- Canada approves spot Solana ETFs
- SEC drops case against Helium
- Solana drops to third place in the NFT race
Introduction
Solana came in hot with a clean 22% gain this week (April 8-15), buoyed by President Trump’s announcement of a temporary 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs.
But the macro move is just one piece of the puzzle as Solana adds more muscle under the hood.
The network rolled out SIMD-0207, a protocol upgrade that increased block time by 4%, potentially increasing its scalability.
Regulatory clarity is also continuing to tilt in Solana’s favor. The SEC has officially dropped its case against Nova Labs, the parent company behind Helium (HNT), a key player in the Solana DePIN space.
In addition, crypto-friendly Paul Atkins has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the new Chair of the SEC, bringing hope back to regulation after the bitter Gary Gensler tenure. The new securities czar holds $6 million in self-disclosed crypto wealth. So bullishhhh.
And there's more on the institutional front. Canada is preparing to launch the country’s first Solana-based ETFs this week. Wen U.S. spot Solana ETFs?
In the aftermath of the Mantra (OM) meltdown, here are more reasons on why to feel good about Solana:
Here is your weekly dose of Solana's key updates and developments.
Top 5 Solana News Stories
OpenSea Rolls Out Solana Support
Solana has joined OpenSea’s new OS2 platform, initially allowing SOL token trading for select beta users.
Canada Approves First Spot Solana ETFs
Canada is set to launch its first spot Solana ETFs on April 16, issued by firms including Purpose, Evolve, CI, and 3iQ. These ETFs will include staking features, potentially offering higher yields and lower holding costs compared to Ether-based products.
Virtuals Protocol Crashes From Peak to Pit
AI agent platform Virtuals Protocol has seen its daily revenue collapse from over $500,000 in January to just $500, with token prices significantly down.
SEC Drops Case Against Helium
The SEC has dismissed its lawsuit against Helium’s parent company, Nova Labs, with prejudice—marking a major legal win for the Solana-based DePIN protocol.
Official Trump To Unlock 20% of Token Supply
On April 18, 40 million $TRUMP tokens, 20% of its supply, will enter the market, marking a crossroads moment for the meme coin’s future.
Solana Numbers the Last 7 Days
Source: CoinMarketCap
- Price: $132, up 22%
- Market cap: $68.12 billion
- DeFi TVL: $6.935 billion
- Daily active addresses: >4 million
- 24Hh trading volume: $3.75 billion
Solana is closing in on $7 billion in total value locked (TVL), a 10% week-over-week increase. But while capital flows are moving up, user activity tells a different story.
Active wallet addresses dropped nearly 25%, down to 4 million over the same period. What does this divergence suggest about Solana?
Source: Artemis
Solana’s decentralized exchanges processed $15.145 billion in weekly volume, up 14% from last week. It’s the highest level in weeks.
Source: DeFiLlama
Source: DeFiLlama
How Did Solana Stack Up Against Its Competitors?
The needle moved a bit, with the Fear and Greed Index rising from 19 to 34 in a week and bringing us out of extreme fear to only fear. After the last couple of weeks, we’ll take it.
Source: CoinMarketCap
It was a strong week across the top altcoins, but Solana led the pack, outpacing both Bitcoin and its layer-1 peers.
Bitcoin rose 9%, with Strategy deploying $285 million into BTC markets. Meanwhile, Solana outperformed with a significantly higher percentage gain, reinforcing its recent momentum.
XRP followed closely, posting a 15% gain, while BNB climbed 6%, still trading below the $600 mark. Ethereum is up 5% in the same period.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Solana-based applications generated more revenue (in 24 hours) than Ethereum, Tron, and Arbitrum combined, signaling strong demand at the DApp layer.
However, when it comes to network fees, Tron led the pack, posting higher total fees than Solana over the same period.
Source: DeFiLlama
Solana Ecosystem the Last Week
It was a week of contrasting fortunes as the market for the Solana ecosystem grew by 16% and its volume sank by 31%.
Source: CoinMarketCap
- The majority of Solana ecosystem tokens posted gains, with only a handful experiencing losses.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Top Gainers:
- Orca (ORCA): +74.14%
- Solayer (LAYER): +39.29%
- Helium (HNT): +32.68%
- Raydium (RAY): +29.80%
- Decentraland (MANA): +28.63%
Top Losers:
- Grass (GRASS): -14.17%
- FTX Token (FTT): -7.22%
- Axie Infinity (AXS): -4.12%
- Olympus v2 (OHM): -2.91%
Solana DeFi
- Solana added double-digit gains to its TVL but still slipped below Bitcoin in the rankings.
Source: DeFiLlama
- Bitcoin accounts for 8% of the total value locked while Solana is just below 7%.
Source: DeFiLlama
Solana Meme Coins
- Solana-based meme coins bounced back this week, putting on a show reminiscent of their trademark volatility—swings that once dominated headlines.
- Fartcoin, Bonk, Gigachad and Popcat had particularly strong bounces.
- TRUMP, the official Trump-themed meme coin, stayed relatively flat ahead of a key token unlock event on April 18, when 20% of its total supply is set to hit the market.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Top Gainers:
- MANEKI (MANEKI): +170%
- Popcat (POPCAT): +88.20%
- Fartcoin (FARTCOIN): +56.89%
- Michi (MICHI): +42.88%
- RETARDIO (RETARDIO): +39.49%
Top Losers:
- Official Melania Meme (MELANIA): -19.65%
- Bobaoppa (BOBAOPPA): -16.73%
- Myro (MYRO): -13.62%
- Fwog (FWOG): -13.3%
- Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT): - 3.90%
Solana DePIN
Source: DePIN Scan
- It was a great week for Solana's DePIN sector, with Aleph.im enjoying a 45% gain.
- Grass (GRASS) and Hivemapper (HONEY) were in the red.
NFTs
- Solana has surrendered its NFT lead to Ethereum and Base, leaving it in third place.
Source: NFT Pulse
What You Can Do Now
- Monitor when OpenSea opens up SOL trading to the public.
- Keep an eye on institutions as Solana ETFs land in Canada.
- Protect your investments as interest in AI agents wanes.
- Keep track of the SEC as it takes a crypto-friendly stance.
- Don't marry your bags as TRUMP coin is set to unlock a fifth of its token supply.
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