Solana Plunges to $87 as Memecoin Engine Stalls Amid Broader Crypto Turmoil
Solana (SOL) started 2026 trading near $127 on January 1st, but quickly fell to around $87 by mid-March as the broader crypto market struggled with geopolitical turmoil and a collapse in memecoin trading.
The total cryptocurrency market capitalization hovered around $2.41 trillion in early March, while the Fear and Greed Index sat at an extreme fear reading of 15, indicating that investors were extremely bearish on risk assets.
Institutional money had not abandoned the space entirely, as Fidelity Digital Assets recorded its largest weekly inflow of institutional capital during the first week of March. The European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulations, which took full effect on January 1st, provided a clearer operating framework that appeared to be encouraging new participation from traditional finance players.
The memecoin engine, which had powered Solana's meteoric rise in 2024 and 2025, has stalled. In the week ending February 2nd, Solana's total DEX volume stood at $118.2 billion, but fell to $44.5 billion by the week ending February 23rd, a 62% decline in just three weeks.
The collapse was not a single-event failure but rather a slow unwinding of confidence driven by rug pulls, celebrity-account hacking scandals, and the implosion of several high-profile tokens. The network lost its primary revenue driver almost overnight.