FTX and its trading arm Alameda Research were among Solana’s largest backers, holding roughly 58 million SOL when they collapsed in November 2022. The market treated SOL as an FTX asset rather than an independent network, and the price fell about 97% from near $260 to a low around $8. The network itself never stopped producing blocks. What followed was a slower story than the collapse: a multi-year liquidation of the estate’s position at steep discounts, and a recovery that took SOL back above its old high by January 2025.
Key Facts
- FTX and Alameda accumulated roughly 58 million SOL, the largest holding on the network at the time.
- SOL fell about 97% after the November 2022 collapse, from near $260 to around $8.
- Block production continued normally throughout — the collapse was financial, not technical.
- Much of the position was locked under vesting, so it could not be sold immediately.
- The estate sold 25-30 million locked tokens at around $64 each, raising roughly $1.9 billion.
- A further tranche concluded around $2.6 billion in sales at steep discounts.
- SOL reached a new all-time high near $295 in January 2025, above the pre-collapse peak.
Why SOL Was Hit Hardest
Sam Bankman-Fried had been Solana’s most visible institutional supporter, and FTX and Alameda held both an enormous SOL position and stakes in the ecosystem around it. When the exchange failed, three things hit simultaneously: forced deleveraging across the market, the certainty that a 58-million-token position would eventually be sold, and a reputational association that made SOL look like a failed exchange’s project rather than a network.
The third was the most damaging in the short term and the least justified. Nothing about consensus, throughput or the validator set depended on FTX, and the chain kept producing blocks through the entire episode — a distinction that the price chart from that period completely obscures.
The Overhang That Lasted Years
| Stage | What happened | Effect on price |
|---|---|---|
| November 2022 | FTX and Alameda fail | ~97% decline to around $8 |
| 2023-2024 | Estate sells locked tranches at discounts | Repeated pressure at each unlock |
| Notable tranche | 25-30M locked SOL sold near $64 each | ~$1.9B raised, well below market |
| Later tranche | Around $2.6B concluded at steep discounts | Removed the remaining overhang |
| January 2025 | New all-time high near $295 | Full recovery and beyond |
The discounted sales are the underappreciated detail. Because the tokens were locked under vesting schedules, the estate could not dump them on the open market — it sold them privately to buyers willing to hold through the unlock period, at prices well under spot. Those buyers took on the timing risk and were compensated for it, which is why the composition of large SOL holders changed substantially over that period.
What Actually Recovered
Not simply the price. Between the bottom and the 2025 high, Solana went from a chain associated with a bankrupt exchange to one where memecoin trading, launchpads and DEX volume made it the busiest network by application revenue. The recovery came from a use case that barely existed in 2022, not from the NFT and DeFi activity that had driven the 2021 peak.
That is a different kind of recovery than “the market forgave it”. The network found new demand rather than returning to old demand — which is also why the recovery was durable enough to exceed the previous high while the FTX overhang was still being distributed. Whether that holds is the substance of the ongoing argument about whether Solana is finished, which resurfaces every drawdown.
The Lesson Worth Keeping
Concentrated ownership is a price risk even when it is not a security risk. FTX could never have stopped Solana, altered a balance or halted the chain — it simply held so much of the supply that its failure guaranteed years of selling pressure. Those are entirely separate problems, and conflating them produces bad analysis in both directions.
Anyone assessing a network today can check the equivalent: how much supply sits with a single entity, and whether that entity is under any obligation to sell. Holdings are visible on Solscan, and price against ecosystem activity on DefiLlama — the same three checks that would have described the FTX overhang accurately in real time.
Why Fixed Supply Removes This Failure Mode
DOLAN Duck ($DOLAN) has a fixed 98.3M supply, no vesting schedule and no institutional allocation — every token that will ever exist is already circulating among roughly 10,700 holders. That structure cannot produce an FTX-shaped problem, because there is no locked tranche waiting to unlock and no single entity whose insolvency would force a multi-year distribution. It is worth being precise about what that does and does not mean: it removes the overhang risk specifically, not market risk generally. A memecoin can still fall for every ordinary reason. What it cannot do is spend two years absorbing scheduled selling from an estate, which is the specific mechanism that shaped SOL’s chart between 2022 and 2025.
SOL fell roughly 97%, from near $260 to a low around $8. FTX and Alameda were among Solana’s largest backers, so the market treated SOL as an FTX asset rather than an independent network.
No. Block production continued normally throughout. The collapse was financial and reputational — nothing about consensus, throughput or the validator set depended on FTX.
Roughly 58 million SOL, making them the largest holders on the network. Much of it was locked under vesting schedules, so the position could not be sold immediately.
Privately and at steep discounts, since the tokens were locked. One tranche of 25-30 million sold near $64 each for about $1.9 billion, with a later conclusion of roughly $2.6 billion.
Yes. SOL reached a new all-time high near $295 in January 2025, above its November 2021 peak of around $259, even while estate distribution was still under way.
A new use case. Memecoin trading, launchpads and DEX volume made Solana the busiest chain by application revenue, which is different demand from the NFT and DeFi activity of 2021.
That concentrated ownership is a price risk even when it is not a security risk. FTX could never have altered the chain — it simply held enough supply that its failure guaranteed years of selling.