Memecoin slump means Solana has big hurdle before surge to $500

The good news?

Solana is expected to hit a new record of $500.

The bad news?

It won’t happen until 2029, a Standard Chartered analyst said in a note to investors on Tuesday.

That’s because the network doesn’t have a new business engine as powerful as joke coins, the UK bank’s analyst said.

Memecoin frenzy

While the memecoin frenzy proved the network’s ability to handle high trading volumes at low cost, recent data indicate that this trend has cooled dramatically, wrote Geoff Kendrick, head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered.

More than 70,000 memecoins were launched on Pump.fun at its peak on January 23, according to onchain data.

That figure has since more than halved.

“If meme-related activity has peaked, then activity on Solana is unlikely to bounce back to its January 2025 peak,” wroteKendrick.

Solana’s native SOL token hit an all-time high of $293 on January 19, the day after President Donald Trump released his memecoin on the network.

It’s trading at $177 on Tuesday.

And until it finds its next niche, Kendrick predicts that the price of SOL will drag its closest competitor, Ethereum, for at least the next two or three years.

‘Difficult spot’

That doesn’t mean the price of SOL won’t rise in the meantime.

Indeed, Kendrick predicts the token will jump a whopping 169% to $475 from $176 by the end of 2028.

Still, he predicts that Ethereum will rise 183% to $7,500 over the same period.

“Solana is in a difficult spot in terms of development,” said Kendrick. “It has proven its ability to handle large transaction volumes via memecoin trading, but that sector is now likely past its peak.”

His predictions coincide with bettors on crypto prediction market Polymarket, giving Solana a $49% chance of breaking a new record in 2025.

Kendrick identifies several key markets that can help Solana outpace its biggest competitor.

He highlighted trading and finance apps that demand high throughput, as well as social media apps.

Each of these sectors would leverage Solana’s advantages, said Hendrick.

But scaling these businesses won’t happen overnight.

“We expect Solana to underperform Ethereum over the next two to three years, before catching up in 2028 and ’29,” Kendrick said.

Liam Kelly is DL News’ Berlin-based DeFi correspondent. Have a tip? Get in touch at liam@dlnews.com.