Solana Hits $275 as Donald Trump’s Token Jumps to $8 Billion, Bu

Donald Trump’s official memecoin has jumpstarted fresh speculative activity in the Solana ecosystem nearly overnight.

Multiple large-cap tokens based on Solana surged higher Saturday, and the blockchain’s native SOL token set fresh highs above $275 as the incoming U.S. president backed a new Solana-based TRUMP token Friday night, calling it his “official” memecoin.

The choice of Solana as an issuance network bumped demand and sentiment for SOL tokens, as CoinDesk reported Saturday.

SOL trading volumes have rocketed from Thursday’s $3 billion to over $26 billion in the past 24 hours, with Saturday’s moves bringing weekly gains to over 46%.

That’s a nearly 3,000% surge since three-year lows of $9 in December 2022 following the implosion of crypto exchange FTX and prominent backer Sam Bankman-Fried, which dented sentiment for Solana at the time.

Trump’s official memecoin was issued in late U.S. hours Friday on the Solana blockchain by a team including ecosystem giants Jupiter and Meteora. Prices of Jupiter’s JUP tokens are up 30% in the past 24 hours.

The token launch was co-ordinated by CIC Digital LLC – an affiliate of the Trump Organization, and the newly-formed company Fight Fight Fight LLC, per BBC. The duo holds 80% of the tokens, subject to a vesting period of over three years, and it is unclear how much money Trump might make from the venture.

TRUMP prices rocketed from a few cents to $14 in less than six hours amid widespread confusion on whether the token was actually backed by Trump or if someone had hacked Trump’s account and issued a fake token.

It trades above $44 in Asian afternoon hours Sunday, grabbing listings on prominent exchanges Coinbase and Binance, as well as several futures products. It has become the third-largest memecoin by market capitalization behind dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB), flipping pepecoin (PEPE).