On January 18, Solana (SOL) reached a new all-time high of around $270, having gained 45% over the past week.

The token surpassed its previous record from November 2024, when it peaked at $254.

A key driver of this price surge was the launch of an “official” meme coin, TRUMP, from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump—issued on the Solana network. Within a day, TRUMP soared to $39, giving it a fully-diluted valuation (FDV) of $39.7 billion.

According to DeFi Llama, the frenzy surrounding TRUMP drove daily DEX trading volume on Solana to $19 billion, nearly five times the year-to-date average.

Solana outperformed all other blockchains combined in terms of trading volume, achieving a DEX market share of 52%.

🚨BREAKING: @Solana surpasses all other chains combined in 24-hour DEXs volume.

Dominance: 52% pic.twitter.com/bP2B0v9vvR
— SolanaFloor (@SolanaFloor) January 18, 2025

Why the TRUMP Meme Coin Affected SOL
Former Google developer @TechLead noted that, in theory, the new coin from Trump shouldn’t have caused such a drastic pump for SOL.

$TRUMP at ATH. Impressive tbh.

There's a misconception on Solana thesis however. Since this liquidity is paired against USDC (as opposed to SOL), $SOL should not be pumping at all… The SOL gets sold immediately to USDC to TRUMP. No real demand for SOL. pic.twitter.com/7XV3jKkSnm
— TechLead (@techleadhd) January 19, 2025

He pointed out that TRUMP’s liquidity is paired with USDC, so the demand for SOL might be limited, given the chain’s low transaction fees.

Context