The Solana Story · Module 5 · 2023 to 2024 · 35 min
From late 2023 Solana made a surprising comeback, helped by airdrops, cheap NFTs, a boom in memecoins and a network that finally stayed up.
What you will learn
Describe what drove the comeback.
Explain what a memecoin and an airdrop are.
Say why the February 2024 outage matters in the story.
The lessons
Lesson 1: Airdrops and a recovery
An airdrop is when a project gives free tokens to people who used its app or network. They were designed to reward early users, but they also draw crowds who hope to receive them.
Through late 2023 the price of SOL climbed back, passing $100 in December. In January 2024 a popular Solana trading app, Jupiter, announced a large airdrop, which brought a surge of new users and activity.
Compressed NFTs, introduced in 2023, let developers create digital items for a tiny fraction of the previous cost. That made it practical to give out millions of them, for example as tickets or rewards.
Remember: Free tokens attract users. They do not guarantee that users stay.
Lesson 2: The memecoin wave
A memecoin is a token created around a joke or a trend, such as a dog picture, with no real product behind it. Bonk, launched in December 2022, and dogwifhat, in late 2023, were early Solana examples.
In January 2024 the app Pump.fun made it possible to launch a new memecoin in a few clicks. Thousands appeared every day. A few made some people a lot of money, and the great majority went to nearly nothing, and many were outright scams.
Memecoins show both sides of Solana’s low fees. They made trading easy and cheap, and they also made it easy to lose money quickly. If you take one thing from this lesson, let it be that a cheap, fast network does not make a coin worth owning.
Remember: Easy to buy does not mean worth buying. Most memecoins fall to almost nothing.
Lesson 3: A steadier network
On 6 February 2024 the network stopped again, this time for about five hours, after a bug in the software. It turned out to be the last major outage for a long time, as developers hardened the software and added improvements.
In March 2024 the price of SOL climbed to roughly $200, its highest level since the 2021 peak. By then the network had gone through more than a year of high traffic.
A second team, led by the firm Jump Crypto, was building a separate piece of validator software called Firedancer. Having two independent programs run the network makes it less likely that a single bug stops everything.
Remember: Stability returned slowly. Having more than one version of the software helps.
Key dates
When
What happened
Why it matters
December 2022
Bonk, an early Solana memecoin, launches
The start of the memecoin wave
2023
Compressed NFTs make digital items far cheaper to create
A technical step that lowers the cost of NFTs
December 2023
SOL passes $100
A sign of recovery
January 2024
Jupiter airdrop and the Pump.fun launch
Brings crowds and a flood of memecoins
6 February 2024
Another outage, of about five hours
The last major outage for a long time
March 2024
SOL reaches roughly $200
The highest level since 2021
Key terms: airdrop, memecoin, compressed NFT, client, Firedancer. Open the glossary
Module quiz
4 questions. Tap an answer to see if you are right and why.
1. What is an airdrop?
Projects use them to reward early users.
2. What is a memecoin?
Most fall to almost nothing, and many are scams.
3. Why does having two validator programs help?
Firedancer is a second, independent program.
4. What was notable about the 6 February 2024 outage?
It lasted about five hours and the network was much steadier afterwards.
Do it yourself
Write a five-point checklist for what you would check before ever touching a new memecoin. Include who made it, whether the team can sell, and what happens if it falls to zero. Then ask yourself honestly whether you would still want to.
Not financial advice. This lesson is history and education only. Prices are rounded and shown only to explain how big the swings were.