How did Solana become the most remarkable resurgent in Web3 history?

Author: Jeff Albus, Blockworks; Translated by: Wuzhu, Golden Finance

The first part of this article can be clicked on "The Origin of Solana: How to Turn Ideas into Reality? 》

The second part of this article can be found in "The Origin of Solana: How Alameda and FTX bring SOL into the Abyss"

By early 2023, it's understandable if you think Solana is finished. Of course, it has been abandoned by the entire industry. But the story of the network doesn't end there. Instead, it achieved one of the most amazing recovery in Web3’s history—not driven by institutional support or VC generous donations, but by a loyal community and a wave of new experiments that would redefine what Web3 means.

The first and perhaps the most important transformation comes from Solana’s brand. Early on, Solana positioned itself as an institutional blockchain. It should be a high-speed network for the next generation of DeFi advanced users—it compared itself to a "decentralized Nasdaq" at the time. But institutional funding has disappeared, and many exquisite financial products built on these commitments have collapsed. Instead, a community-driven grassroots movement began to fill this gap and relied heavily on the internet’s irreverent culture: self-deprecating humor, group copy-paste, and most importantly, Meme.

Solana has become the blockchain for ordinary people.

This transformation is tangible by the rise of Bonk , a memecoin launched at the end of 2022. Unlike most corporate-supported projects, Bonk is widely circulated in the community, embodying an interesting but profoundly resonant spirit. It brings new users to the ecosystem and restores some of the energy lost in the aftermath of the FTX. As meme’s perceived value gains social recognition, the atmosphere has once again become warm with the emergence of the “next event” of cryptocurrency. Three British entrepreneurs – Noah Tweedale, Alon Cohen and Dylan Kerler – sensed this change in fate and opened Pump.fun in January 2024. This is a cultural force. The platform makes creating and trading tokens easier (and cheaper) than ever before, and can be executed almost immediately. This democratization has driven a surge in speculative but highly attractive on-chain activity.

Meanwhile, Solana is making significant technological advances. Blinks introduces a new paradigm of seamless, native blockchain transactions where users can trade directly from their X source. Firedancer, a new validator client developed by Jump Crypto, has entered the development stage with the goal of improving network stability and reducing the risk of interruptions. State compression technology greatly reduces the cost of casting and storing non-fungal assets. Smart wallets utilize account abstraction to replace traditional seed phrases with multi-factor authentication.

Within just a few months, the recovery of the Solana creator community quickly gained narrative clarity. Builders who persevered during the worst of the bear market now have better infrastructure, lower costs and a more engaged retail community. The price of SOL has been hovering below $10 after FTX, and then climbed steadily. By early 2024, the asset rebounded to over $100, and its DeFi and NFT ecosystems flourished again.

Emotions have changed. When prices surpassed their all-time highs before FTX, Solana has transformed into one of the most dynamic, unpredictable and community-driven networks in Web3 history. It proves that the life and death of an ecosystem depends not on supporters, but on the resilience of its builders and users.

Our industry often abandons failed projects. When emotions change and capital continues to flow, we tend to declare a network dead, redistribute resources and chase the next trend. But Solana does one rare thing: it survives, adapts, and thrives—not because it is favored, but because its community refuses to let it die. In a space where narrative is written and rewrites at an extremely fast pace, Solana proves that being the weak is sometimes the best advantage.