This Week in Solana - March 10-16th 2025
Let's dive into what happened this week in Solana. Prices gained slightly, but the overall crypto market went sideways for most of the week.
Solana celebrates 5 years since their first block! 
In the past 30 days, $314M has bridged from Ethereum to Solana — 463% more than Eth to all L2’s combined.
SIMD-228 failed to pass, getting only 61.39% support, falling short of the 66.67% needed. It caused a lot of debate within the community with people for and against coming out with the gloves off. Voting for a change that reduces the income of the people voting can be an uphill battle..
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TLDR on SIMD-228: It was a proposal to overhaul Solana's token inflation model. It aimed to shift from a fixed inflation schedule (currently around 4.5-4.7% annually, decreasing over time to 1.5%) to a dynamic, market-based system tied to the staking rate. The goal was to reduce inflation significantly—potentially by 70-80%, dropping it below 1%—by adjusting the issuance of new SOL tokens based on how much SOL is staked.
If staking fell below a target (e.g., 50%), inflation would increase to encourage participation; if staking exceeds it, inflation would decrease, aiming to optimize network security and economic efficiency. It sought to cut staking rewards, reduce SOL supply growth, and ease selling pressure
SIMD-123 did pass.It was a proposal to improve how rewards are shared between Solana validators and stakers. It’s expected to increase staker yields slightly (around +1% APY). Validators can set a commission rate, and the rest of the rewards—calculated automatically each epoch (roughly 2-3 days)—would go to stakers, which previously was not possible to auto set up.
Drift (@DriftProtocol) launches Swift, an in app protocol that allows Faster fills, the lowest slippage and gasless trading
Polymarket (@Polymarket) hints at possibly expanding to Solana
One of the most popular and battle tested protocols on Arbitrum, GMX launched on Solana (@GMX_SOL ) and did over 1 billion in volume in the first 24hrs!
Zeta Markets (@ZetaMarkets) has rebranded as Bullet (@bulletxyz_) and is coming for @HyperliquidX with a @solana network extension, aka basically a layer 2. Their goal is bringing CEX-tier precision to on-chain Solana traders with 100x speed improvements. Testnet is live now.
Solana Stablecoin Market Cap is at ATHs, even though the market has been hit hard.
The GENUIS Act passed out of Senate Banking with a strong and bi-partisan 18-6 vote. It’s not done, but it’s taken the first step of approval.
Coinbase (@coinbase) launched the world’s first CFTC-regulated nano @solana (SOL) futures. You can now trade them with leverage on Coinbase Advanced. The nano Solana Futures is a monthly cash-settled and margined index futures contract. Each contract represents 5 Solana
Franklin Templeton @FTDA_US files their @solana ETF!
The House just overturned the Biden administration's DeFi broker rule, which would have forced providers of non-custodial software to KYC users. The vote was 292-131. This is a huge win for DeFi!
Even though the markets have been down, Solana still leads in app revenue
Solana: $29.3m, 48%, -18%
Ethereum: $14.5m, 24%, -21%
BNB: $8.5m, 14%, -8%
Base: $5.5m, 9%, -16%
DePHY (@dephynetwork) went into partnership with Jito (@jito_sol) This collaboration will build a more secure and scalable DePIN ecosystem and deliver enhanced security for DePHY's infrastructure while creating yield opportunities for (re)stakers. By combining forces with Jito Network, DePHY is improving security and pioneering new standards for more sustainable, decentralized infrastructure on Solana.
Interested in learning how to implement crypto payments to your @shopify store? Check out our step by step article. We also discuss how to secure your @sns .sol name
Price movements
Sol - Down 0.3% on the week - Started $133 - (high $136) dropped down to $112 - current $130
Eth - Down 8.4% on the week - Started $2113 - (high $2152) dropped down to $1755 - current $1912
BTC - Up 1.24% on the week - Started $83,289 - (high $84,734) dropped down to $76,564 - current $84,261
Total Crypto Market Cap - Down 0.32% (-8.3 billion) to 2.62 Trillion
Sol + Stablecoins Yields on chain
