While Solana is up just 5% over the past year, global sentiment around the altcoin is bullish due to its potential technical capabilities to outperform its main rivals in performance.

Solana’s Firedancer validator client, expected to leave testnet in 2025, is demonstrating transaction-per-second capabilities exceeding one million in test environments, a development aimed at solving core blockchain scalability challenges.

This leap in performance, designed to enhance network stability, is occurring as Solana gains attention from both government and corporate sectors.

The asset’s potential inclusion in a US digital asset stockpile and a trend of public companies converting treasury reserves to SOL point to growing confidence in the network’s technical roadmap.

Solana Firedancer validator

The Firedancer validator client, developed by Jump Crypto, addresses historical criticisms of Solana’s network stability. By introducing a C++ client alongside the original Rust-based version, the initiative aims to enhance client diversity and mitigate the risk of a single bug causing a network-wide halt.

Firedancer’s architecture uses a custom networking stack and optimized cryptography, which allows it to exceed one million transactions per second in test settings.

The hybrid version of the client, known as Frankendancer, has been live on the mainnet with early adopters since September 2024, with the full mainnet release projected for later in 2025. The successful deployment of this technology is central to attracting enterprise-grade applications that require high network reliability.

Alongside technical improvements, the Solana community should keep track of policy developments in the United States. An Executive Order signed on March 6 established a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and a separate “U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile” for non-bitcoin assets.

While the order itself does not name specific altcoins, President Donald Trump’s statement on March 3 included Solana in the broader US strategic crypto initiative. As the Federal Register outlines, any government holding of Solana would fall under the “Digital Asset Stockpile,” which is funded by assets forfeited to the US Treasury.

“The “United States Digital Asset Stockpile,” capitalized with all digital assets owned by the Department of the Treasury, other than BTC, that were finally forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings and that are not needed to satisfy requirements.”

The framework does not mandate active market purchases of SOL, but its potential inclusion provides a level of official recognition that could influence institutional perception.

Given the rise in memecoin activity on Solana and the wealth of rug pulls, the potential for government seizures of SOL has increased. The seized crypto could be added to the government’s digital asset stockpile and potentially be HODLed indefinitely.

Like the strategic Bitcoin reserve, the US government has no concrete plans to purchase any digital assets, and therefore, seizure from criminal activity is the only route to government ownership.

However, given that the SEC has declared memecoins not to be securities, law enforcement’s ability to prosecute rug pulls becomes more complicated.

Institutional adoption of Solana

This institutional narrative is strengthened by activity in the corporate sector. In late May, SOL Strategies, a publicly traded company, announced it had fully divested its Bitcoin position to focus its treasury exclusively on Solana, holding approximately CAD $100 million in SOL.

The company also filed a preliminary base shelf prospectus to potentially raise up to $1 billion for future investments in the Solana ecosystem. Leah Wald, CEO of SOL Strategies, stated the company is “all in on Solana,” aligning its treasury with validator growth and long-term ecosystem investment.

Other firms like Classover Holdings and DeFi Development Corporation are also building substantial SOL-based treasuries, marking an emerging trend of corporate capital moving into the Solana ecosystem for primary asset holdings.

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Dubai-based Indian memecoin creator, Sahil Arora, called memecoin rug pull schemes the most lucrative opportunity in an interview with the New York Post. According to the May 17 article, Arora, who boasts of earning millions of dollars from over 100 memecoin rug pulls, said:

“The easiest way to make money is to deploy a meme coin, run it, and then sell as soon as you see [profits].”

In rug pulls or pump-and-dump schemes, bad actors create a worthless memecoin, use false or paid endorsements to promote it, and sell it as soon as the price goes up. The creators usually control a large portion of the tokens, and selling off the pile causes the price to crash.

Therefore, investors bear the losses while the creator makes off with millions. In August 2024, crypto sleuth ZachXBT estimated that Arora earned between $2 million and $3 million through memecoin scams.

Last year, Arora told The Defiant that it “took a lotta brain pulling that [rug pulls] off.” Arora, who is proud to have been called a “super villain,” brazenly told the Post that rug pulling is the “biggest casino on Earth right now.”

Veteran crypto investor Kyle Chassé told the Post:

“…at least in the casino, you know that maybe 60 percent of the time the house wins. In this [crypto] casino, the house is going to win 99 percent of the time.”

Arora added:

“If you don’t get rugged by me, you’re probably going to get rugged by someone else. So, you might as well get rugged by a person with a track record of some success rather than getting rugged by a random person on the Internet.”

Arora continues to carry out memecoin rug pulls

Last year, several celebrities accused Arora of using memecoins connected to them to orchestrate and pull off pump-and-dump scams. This included former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner, Dimitri Leslie Roger, an American rapper known as Rich the Kid, and Australian rapper Iggy Azalea.

Despite the accusations and Arora’s non-denial of involvement, he managed to pull off more rug pulls. In February 2025, Arora, who portrays a lavish lifestyle from money earned through rug pulls, launched the token BROCCOLI, an ode to former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ’s) dog, using the same wallet he used to launch Jenner’s official memecoin in 2024. Arora told Decrypt that he made $6.5 million by dumping Brocolli tokens.

Pseudonymous crypto consultant Cryptony told the Post that the price of memecoins like Brocolli only goes up because of large demand after endorsements or promotions. He added:

“[In rug pulls] The rich get richer. For one person to make money, another person has to lose money. That’s where it comes from.”

Arora is one of many

Several influencers have been accused of promoting memecoins that crash in value. This includes YouTuber Paul “Ice Poseidon” Denino, Faze Kay, and Haliey “Hawk Tuah Girl” Welch.

Denino reportedly emptied out the liquidity pool of his memecoin two weeks after launch. He admitted to stealing the money from investors, with his total loot standing at around $750,000.

Faze Kay was accused of promoting a token called Save the Kids that crashed. Welch, whose memecoin HAWK lost 95% of its value in minutes, however, was cleared by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of any wrongdoing, according to her manager.

A new report from Solidus Labs has exposed a huge amount of what it calls “fraudulent” activity on the Solana blockchain.

The findings revealed that 98.6% of tokens launched on Pump.fun could be classified as either rug pulls or pump-and-dump schemes.

Solana: A Hotbed for Meme Coin Scams?

In its report, the crypto surveillance firm pointed to Solana’s low fees and user-friendly decentralized exchanges (DEX) as key reasons why it has become a hotspot for meme coin speculation.

“Investors beware as the Solana ecosystem continues to grow, it’s increasingly becoming ground zero for memecoin fraud,” Solidus warned.

At the heart of this growth is Pump.fun, a Solana-based token-generating platform, which has seen daily trading volumes exceed $100 million. According to Solidus, this figure was mainly driven by speculative meme coin activity.

Between January 2024 and March 2025, over 7 million tokens were deployed with at least five trades each. Of these, only 97,000 retained liquidity above $1,000. The report concludes that 98.6% of tokens on the platform collapsed into worthless pump-and-dump schemes shortly after launch.

Earlier in the year, CryptoPotato reported on a Pump.fun user who created at least 18,000 coins and netted more than $3.7 million from rapid price pumps and strategic exits.

The platform recently launched an automated market maker (AMM) that applies a bonding curve pricing model. Under this system, token prices increase exponentially with each purchase, which benefits creators and early buyers.

According to the analysis, this model disadvantages later participants due to higher token prices and potential losses when creators liquidate their holdings.

A separate report by Pine Analytics also highlighted a practice known as deployer-funded, same-block sniping. This method allows creators to profit by executing trades within the same block as token deployment.

Solidus Labs also examined Raydium, another major Solana-based DEX that uses traditional liquidity pools funded by token makers. Out of 388,000 pools analyzed, 361,000, or 93%, showed characteristics of soft rug pulls. This involved incidents where liquidity was suddenly withdrawn, causing price crashes.

The financial damage from such cases varies. About 25% of the involved amounts were under $732. However, the median figure was about $2,832, while the largest one detected amounted to $1.9 million.

Legal Troubles And Controversies

In January, Pump.fun was targeted by two class-action lawsuits. Both accused the platform of violating U.S. securities laws by facilitating the launch of unregistered tokens and allegedly collecting up to $500 million in related fees.

In December last year, it was forced to temporarily pause its livestream function after token creators started making disturbing broadcasts to pump their coins. In the immediate aftermath, Pump.fun faced a $22 million revenue crash, with on-chain data showing weekly income nosediving.