Howdy! 

For me personally, a very important but underemphasized part of this newsletter is me sharing my takes on fast food. Who knows, I might even launch a Lightspeed spin-off for that specific thing.

During Permissionless last week, I got the chance to try Swig, a Utah-based chain specializing in “dirty sodas.” I had a Dr. Pepper with peach and coconut mixed in — don’t knock it ‘til you try it. Business-wise, I think they’ll need to lean a lot more into items involving alcohol (which is a much more profitable liquid than soda). Anyways:

Solana bull run turns one

Happy birthday, Solana bull run.

A year ago today, SOL was trading at around $22. By the end of October 2023, the price had nearly doubled. By Christmas day, it crossed $120 — a price appreciation of over 400% in less than three months. The chart pierced $200 a couple times in March, but SOL has oscillated above and below $150 for much of the past six months. 

The asset was trading at around $155 at press time, a 606% increase from a year ago, according to CoinGecko.

Solana’s downtrend ended with its chief perpetrator — former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried — on trial for fraud. As the market realized that FTX estate sales of SOL wouldn’t be as catastrophic as some feared, the price began to tick upward. Still, common knowledge held that Solana would struggle to shake off its FTX ties quite so quickly.

“Solana Is Down 15% Since Hitting a 14-Month High. Is the Rally Over?,” read one headline as SOL’s price sat around $40.

As the Bankman-Fried circus slowly receded from public view, token airdrops took over Solana’s mindshare. Multiple Solana-based DeFi protocols — most notably Jupiter and Jito — distributed new native tokens to their users. Airdrop farming, or moving assets around in hopes of increasing one’s allocation, partly juiced the assets in Solana DeFi protocols to over $4 billion in March for the first time since early 2022. Today, Solana DeFi holds over $6 billion in assets, according to DeFiLlama.

For the bull run’s third act — one we’re very much still in the middle of — SOL rode a wave of excitement surrounding memecoins. What started with missing pre-sale funds and DogWifHat on the Las Vegas Sphere gave way to pump.fun, a novel launchpad that let anyone launch a memecoin for a couple of dollars-worth in SOL. The platform, which is younger than Solana’s bull run, has generated nearly $130 million in revenue. 

As with many things in crypto, Solana’s bull run has involved a heavy dose of unseriousness — “free money” and speculative pet pictures abounded. And obviously, price trends like Solana’s can’t last forever, and we could very well be reflecting on Solana’s 500% drop a year from today. But for those who timed the bull run correctly, there was life-changing money to be made.

Last week at Permissionless III, I met Klaus Wenzel, a Lightspeed reader who paid his way to attending the conference with profits he had taken from a SOL investment last October. Wenzel pays his bills with staking rewards from his SOL, he told me in a direct message.

“Now I can scroll Twitter, listen to Blockworks podcasts and research crypto full time. Life has never been better,” Wenzel said.

— Jack Kubinec

Speaking of alternative layer-1s that have seen noteworthy price increases:

Sui, a smart contract blockchain that makes use of the Move programming language developed by Meta during its ill-fated crypto days, has seen its token do a 400% price climb of its own over the past year, driven particularly by a 120% spike over the past month. 

Rooter, the pseudonymous founder of Solana-based Save and Sui-based Suilend, said in an X post that Sui offers a better developer experience and a user experience that is “on par if not better” than Solana.

Solana’s market capitalization is nearly twelve times the size of Sui’s, and who knows how long Sui’s price breakout can last. Still, there could be a rivalry budding in the high-performance blockchain world.

— Jack Kubinec

It’s a wrap for Permissionless III! Attendees praised the conference’s intimate setup, from the AI and policy tracks to wellness events like pickleball and rock climbing. @na_stynate called it “10/10 well done, solid vibes, high quality sessions.” @joevezz agreed: “Ran into more quality people in the hotel lobby than any other conference I’ve been to.” @0xMarcB summed it up, saying, “You crushed it. Quality was so much higher than you find anywhere else.”

Attendees appreciated the chance to connect meaningfully, with @mraltantutar sharing, “Smaller conference, better attendees -> definitely top 1% of the space.” The event’s intimate setting also earned praise. @glennonchain said, “This was one of the only conferences I’ve attended where I never found myself in a session that felt like a waste of time.”

Many enjoyed trading insights from the morning keynotes and, of course, the pickleball tournament and Karate Combat were crowd favorites. As @TrustlessState put it, "Permissionless is for the athletes." Even Senator Mike Lee chimed in: “Had an outstanding time at the @permissionless conference in Salt Lake City with @RepJohnCurtis discussing the future of crypto, saving the 4th Amendment, and keeping the government out of our bank accounts.”

— Jeffrey Albus

A message from Jake Ostrovskis, OTC trader at Wintermute: