The Solana ecosystem stirs up waves again, the on-chain "slot machine" causes controversy

With the news of a certain platform issuing tokens once again, the already fragile liquidity defense line on the Solana chain was breached, which also tore apart the market confidence that was still in the recovery phase, and the on-chain risk aversion sentiment quickly heated up.

On-chain "slot machines", income polarization

Recently, rumors surrounding a certain platform's upcoming token release have stirred the market once again. According to reports, the platform plans to raise $1 billion through token sales, with a valuation reaching $4 billion. The tokens will be sold to both the public and private investors. Although the official release time has not yet been confirmed, the platform's social media accounts suggest that it may go live within two weeks.

In fact, this is not the first time that a token issuance plan has been rumored. As early as February of this year, there were reports that the platform planned to issue tokens through a Dutch auction. However, at that time, market liquidity was significantly drained by the personal MEME coin issued by Trump and his wife Melania, and the plan ultimately failed to materialize. Now, with the market environment slightly improving, this token issuance plan seems to be back on the agenda.

However, this on-chain "printing press" is facing a significant decline in market enthusiasm.

According to the data, as of June 4th, the platform's cumulative revenue has exceeded $730 million, with a daily revenue peak that once approached $15 million. However, since February 2025, the platform's revenue growth has significantly slowed down, and currently, most daily revenues are stable in the range of several million dollars.

In terms of trading volume, the platform set a historical record of $3.3 billion in a single week at the end of 2024. Although there were several rebounds to the $1 billion level thereafter, it struggled to return to its peak. The weakening trend of liquidity has somewhat diminished the platform's popularity and users' willingness to participate.

In terms of the number of tokens created, the platform has accumulated over 11.02 million tokens to date, with a single-day token creation peak reaching 70,000 (in January 2025). However, this data has now dropped to an average of around 30,000 per day, indicating a decrease in user participation enthusiasm.

It is worth noting that among the vast number of MEME coins, there are only a few projects with a certain market capitalization. According to statistics, currently only 14 tokens have a market value exceeding $50 million, and only 259 tokens have a market value between $1 million and $50 million, while approximately 14,000 other tokens are in the micro-cap stage. This also indicates that the vast majority of tokens are stuck in the internal trading phase, lacking the ability to attract external funding.

At the user level, the platform is also facing a new traffic cliff, with old users struggling to hold on. Data shows that the platform reached a peak moment at the end of January 2025, with the number of active wallets in a single day exceeding 400,000. At that time, the influx of new users was the key to the explosive growth in user numbers. However, as market sentiment cooled, the number of active wallets declined, and the platform's activity mainly relied on the reuse of old users, with a significant drop in contributions from new users. This trend also confirms that a large number of users frequently attempt to create and speculate on MEME coins, but very few projects can establish sustainable value, leading to short user cycles and weak retention.

Moreover, behind the platform's narrative of getting rich quickly lies a stark survivor bias. Data shows that the number of wallets participating in trading this month is about 594,000, of which only 3.6% of users achieved substantial profits of over $500. Even more astonishing is that only 27 wallets made profits exceeding $100,000, accounting for just 0.0045% of total traders; while the number of wallets achieving profits over $10,000 is 577, which also accounts for only 0.1%. In contrast, the loss ratio is even higher, reaching 52.5%, with many extreme cases of losses in the million-dollar range. These figures clearly indicate that a very small number of market makers have pocketed the vast majority of the profits, while the overwhelming majority of retail investors merely serve as liquidity fuel.

At a time when user growth has peaked, the quality of tokens is concerning, and liquidity is overdrawn, whether the platform's token issuance can leverage market sentiment to support a valuation as high as $4 billion is quite uncertain.

Risk aversion sentiment rises for Solana, high valuation token issuance sparks controversy

The platform's high valuation and token issuance news have raised concerns among many investors about whether it will repeat the last wave of frenzy seen during the launch of APE coin.

"The last king-level project with a $4 billion valuation was Yuga Labs, which released APE. It was claimed to be the last wave of brilliance during the bull market, after which the market's altcoins dropped by half. Now, this platform also has a $4 billion valuation, but its fundraising amount is more than double that of APE's back then. In recent days, various exchanges have accelerated their coin listing frequency, likely intending to avoid the big bloodletting two weeks from now," said an industry insider.

From the perspective of the funding flow on the Solana blockchain, risk aversion is rising, and MEME coins are collectively declining. According to data, in the past 24 hours, popular MEME coins in the Solana ecosystem have generally experienced varying degrees of pullback. At the same time, Solana has become the third highest blockchain network in terms of net capital outflow in the past 24 hours.

Independent researchers have bluntly pointed out that the current valuation level of the platform is "extremely inflated". The valuation of a MEME launch platform has surprisingly surpassed most DeFi blue-chip protocols, and they raised the following four core criticisms: (1) The highly inflated market valuation is quite unreasonable: the platform's attention economy business relies on the irrational product of short-term Fomo of market MEME tokens. In simple terms, it is driven by "gambling"-like traffic monetization. This means that its business model's monetization capability is entirely the product of the short-term spotlight effect, rather than a sustainable normalized profit logic; (2) A weak business moat is easily surpassed: the platform has seized the technological dividends of Solana's high performance and low cost, as well as the era dividend of MEME culture transitioning from niche to mainstream. This business model, built on others' infrastructure, is essentially a "parasitic" business. Once there are significant changes in the Solana ecosystem, the fragility of its business model will be fully exposed; (3) The tool-like properties of the Launchpad make it difficult to form an ecosystem: Currently, even if it is "profitable", it is merely a "token issuance tool". The paradox exists in transforming from a pure Launchpad to a complex MEME economic ecosystem: the core of MEME culture is precisely simplicity, directness, and viral spread; excessive functional overlap will only cause the platform to lose its original "wildness"; (4) The extremely high valuation will disrupt the original value innovation system: the platform's super high valuation sends a dangerous signal to the entire industry: in the current Crypto ecosystem, the value of "traffic aggregation + speculative monetization" may exceed that of "technological innovation + infrastructure". He believes the key is whether the platform can truly build a sustainable business moat after acquiring massive capital; otherwise, this distorted valuation will bring tremendous innovative disasters to the entire industry, heralding a more utilitarian, short-sighted Crypto future that is further away from the core of technological geek culture.

In addition, industry insiders have added from a valuation perspective that the platform's annualized revenue over the past 30 days is $77.98 million. Corresponding to an FDV of $5 billion, its FDV/annualized revenue ratio is 64, which is relatively high. From a long-term perspective, the platform is certainly not worth this valuation, as its revenue certainty is not as strong as that of DeFi leaders like Ray/Cake. However, if the market is good, the team may create FOMO and it could potentially double. With the current valuation and the sentiment on social platforms, he believes there is no need to be overly bearish or even short at the opening. Holding cash and waiting to see how things unfold is sufficient.

However, there are also viewpoints that argue that discussing merits and demerits without considering historical processes is just playing the fool. The reason Solana has achieved its current status as a major on-chain battlefield is directly due to the platform, which has provided a comprehensive liquidity solution from zero liquidity to AMM and then to CEX, standardizing on-chain security (withdrawal pools, contract vulnerabilities), fostering PVP on-chain culture, and leading to a significant amount of SOL being locked up. The emergence of this platform is akin to the iPhone moment on-chain, and it is the first to recognize that the attention span of the younger generation is extremely short, and that they disdain traditional values, preferring PVP. From the perspective of value investment, this platform is the largest consumer application on the network, yet it only has a price-to-earnings ratio of 5, making it a true value investment target. He believes that currently, there are only two moats in the cryptocurrency world: liquidity and screen time.

"Stop fantasizing that the platform will issue airdrops." In response to the market's fantasies about airdrops, a certain project founder pointed out that the platform has completed a cold start through its products and has no motivation to issue airdrops. In fact, airdrops have increasingly become a tool for capturing short-term attention. While they seem to "incentivize users," they rarely manage to retain loyal users in essence. Airdrops ≠ user loyalty. Airdrops are merely a traffic release mechanism used to temporarily amplify the project's influence. However, the platform already has a stable and large user base; it does not need to rely on airdrops to supplement attention or create topics.

Overall, while the platform's coin issuance news has once again ignited heated discussions in the market, hidden behind this fervor are the structural liquidity weaknesses in the market, a retreat in user participation sentiment, and the enormous bubble of MEME narratives.