Solana ecosystem "printing machine" faces challenges, high valuation sparks market controversy

Recently, news about a popular application on the Solana blockchain planning to issue tokens has once again attracted market attention. According to reports, the platform intends to raise $1 billion through a token sale, with a valuation reaching $4 billion. Although the official confirmation of the specific release time is still pending, the platform's social media account hinted that it may go live within two weeks.

In fact, this is not the first time that the platform has announced a token issuance plan. In February of this year, there were reports that the platform planned to issue tokens through a Dutch auction within a centralized exchange and had provided detailed token issuance preparation documents to the exchange. However, at that time, the plan ultimately did not materialize due to market liquidity being significantly drawn away by other popular tokens. Now, as the market environment has slightly warmed, the token issuance plan seems to be back on the agenda.

However, this platform known as the on-chain "money printer" 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 single-day revenue peak approaching $15 million. However, since February 2025, the platform's revenue growth has significantly slowed down, and the current daily revenue for most days stabilizes 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 have been several rebounds to the $1 billion level since then, it has been difficult to return to its peak. The trend of weakening 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 peak of 70,000 tokens created in a single day (January 2025). However, this figure has now decreased to around 30,000 tokens per day on average, indicating a cooling of user participation enthusiasm.

It is worth noting that behind the vast number of tokens, there are very few projects that have a certain market value. Data statistics show that currently, there are only 14 tokens with a market value exceeding 50 million USD, and only 259 tokens with a market value between 1 million and 50 million USD, while approximately 14,000 tokens are in the micro-cap stage. This also indicates that the vast majority of tokens remain in the internal hype stage, lacking the ability to attract external funding.

At the user level, the platform is also facing a new flow cliff, with old users struggling to hold on. Data shows that the platform experienced a highlight moment at the end of January 2025, with the number of active wallets in a single day surpassing 400,000. At that time, the influx of new users was key to the explosive growth in user numbers. However, as market sentiment cooled, the number of active wallets declined accordingly, and the platform's activity mainly relied on the reuse of old users, with contributions from new users significantly dropping. This trend also confirms that many users frequently attempt to create and speculate on tokens, but very few projects can establish sustainable value, leading to a short user cycle and weak retention.

Moreover, behind the platform's narrative of getting rich quickly lies a blatant survivor bias. Data shows that the number of wallets participating in trading this month is approximately 594,000, with only 3.6% of users achieving substantial profits of over $500. Even more astonishing is that only 27 wallets made profits exceeding $100,000, accounting for just 0.0045% of all traders; while 577 wallets achieved profits over $10,000, also only making up 0.1%. In contrast, the proportion of losses is even higher, reaching 52.5%, with many extreme cases of losses in the millions of dollars. 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.

In the current situation where user growth has peaked, the quality of tokens is concerning, and liquidity is overstretched, whether the platform's token issuance can leverage market sentiment and support a valuation of up to 4 billion USD is quite uncertain.

Rising Risk Aversion in Solana, Controversy Over Overvalued Token Issuance

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 release of a certain well-known token in the past.

A cryptocurrency industry observer stated: "The last king-level project with a valuation of 4 billion was still a project that issued a certain well-known token, claiming to be the last wave of brilliance in the bull market back then, after which the market's altcoins all halved. Now this platform also has a valuation of 4 billion, but the fundraising amount is more than double that of back then. In the past few days, various exchanges have accelerated the frequency of listing tokens, which is likely also intended to avoid the big bloodsucker two weeks from now."

From the perspective of fund flows on the Solana chain, risk-averse sentiment is rising, and related tokens have collectively declined. Data shows that in the past 24 hours, popular tokens 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.

An independent researcher candidly pointed out that the current valuation level of the platform is "extremely inflated", with the valuation of a token launch platform actually surpassing that of most DeFi blue-chip protocols, and raised the following four core criticisms:

1. The market valuation that is inflated and bubble-like is quite unreasonable: the platform's attention economy business model relies on highly irrational short-term market products. In simple terms, it is driven by a "gambling" nature of traffic monetization. This means that the platform's ability to monetize its business model is entirely a product of the short-term market spotlight effect, rather than a sustainable normalization of profit logic.

2. A fragile business moat can easily be overtaken: platforms have seized the technological dividend of Solana's high performance and low cost, as well as the era dividend of related culture transitioning from niche to mainstream. This business model, which is built on the infrastructure of others, is essentially a "dependent business." Once there are significant changes in the Solana ecosystem, the fragility of its business model will be laid bare.

3. The tool-like attributes are difficult to form an ecosystem on their own: Currently, "making money" is merely a "token issuance tool". The paradox lies in transforming from a pure tool platform into a complex economic ecosystem: the core of the relevant culture is precisely simplicity, directness, and viral spread; excessive functional layering will only cause the platform to lose its original "wildness".

4. Extremely high valuations will disrupt the original value innovation system: The extremely high valuation of platforms sends a dangerous signal to the entire industry: In the current crypto ecosystem, the value of "traffic aggregation + speculative monetization" may surpass that of "technology innovation + infrastructure".

Another industry observer added from a valuation perspective that the platform's annualized revenue over the past 30 days was $77.98 million. Correspondingly, with a fully diluted valuation of $5 billion, the valuation/annualized revenue ratio stands at 64, which is relatively high. In the long term, the platform is certainly not worth this valuation, as the revenue certainty is not as strong as that of DeFi leaders; however, if the market performs well, the team might create a buy-high-sell-low sentiment, and it could potentially double.

However, there are also voices in support of the platform. A KOL in the crypto industry stated that discussing merits and demerits without considering the historical context is just fooling around. The reason why Solana has achieved its current status as a major battlefield on-chain is directly due to this platform, which has provided a comprehensive liquidity solution from zero liquidity to automated market makers and then to centralized exchanges, standardizing on-chain security, building on-chain culture, and forming a substantial amount of SOL locked up. The emergence of this platform represents a significant moment on-chain and is the first to recognize that the attention span of the younger generation is extremely short, while they disdain traditional values and are eager to participate. From the perspective of value investment, this platform is the largest consumer application across the network, yet it has a price-to-earnings ratio of only 5, making it a truly worthy value investment.

Overall, although the news of the token issuance on this platform has once again ignited heated discussions in the market, behind this enthusiasm lies the fragility of the market's structural liquidity, the retreat of user participation sentiment, and the enormous bubble in the related narratives.