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Howdy!

Prices are up, but I've still managed to lose money. You see, I've been playing competitive wordle in World App. Thought I'd cracked the metagame, until I lost 17 straight games in a row. Very frustrating to find out that other people are better at cheating than I am.

Today’s edition covers Solana’s market outlook and the sequel to last week’s protocol upgrade. Let’s go!

Midweek markets: Price action heats up

Everything is back in rosy technicolor this week, with SOL climbing more than 10% over the last seven days, peaking above $205.

At the time of publication, prices have pulled back toward ~$190, and it appears that bulls will need a clean break above $209 before seeing further gains.

The rally has been driven by institutional accumulation and new ETF flows, in addition to the obvious rise in macroeconomic tides. REX-Osprey's SSK, the first US-listed ETF offering spot SOL exposure and onchain staking yield, saw breakout performance as it crossed $100 million in AUM just 12 days after launch.

Earlier this week, Lightspeed wrote that Jito had launched its Block Assembly Marketplace (BAM), a next-gen transaction sequencing layer for Solana that introduces encrypted mempools and custom sequencing logic via plugins. 

By all accounts, it's a significant development for the ecosystem, promising to unlock new use cases such as CLOBs, perp DEXs and dark pools.

While bullish in the long term, BAM may pose near-term headwinds for SOL and JTO due to internalized MEV and lower forward revenue, says a recent report from Blockworks Research. Jito is forgoing short-term profits to improve Solana's microstructure in an aggressive bid to keep the L1 competitive.

Meanwhile, the network's token ecosystem roiled with its own volatility over the past seven days. Biggest gainers include AIGOV (+315%), LETSTOP (+250%) and Don't Burn Capital (+192%).

Legacy projects, such as Drift (+32%), Saros (+46%) and Pythia (+59%), also benefited greatly from selective risk-on rotation.

But not all is green on the vine. 

Certain red-bleeding names, such as Pump.fun (-36%), Useless Coin (-14.7%) and Grass (-15.7%), have given back their recent gains, underlining just how quickly narratives can shift in meme-heavy microcaps. Several newly listed tokens, including ENERGY COIN (-18.9%) and stonks (-39%), also struggled out the gate.

For now, though, momentum is mainly with the bulls — even if the signal-to-noise ratio is as chaotic as ever.

— Jeffrey Albus

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Just a day after its 20% bump to 60m CUs at epoch 822, Solana merged SIMD-0286 — a proposal to raise block limits to 100m CUs — into its main branch.

The upgrade is now gated behind a feature flag and could activate as soon as validators coordinate deployment.

This immediate follow-up would push the tx ceiling even higher, allowing for more complex and more numerous transactions per block.

The move addresses persistent block saturation during periods of high usage, providing developers with the necessary headroom to build without compute constraints.

Validators will need to keep up with heavier loads, but the network as a whole is now positioned for smoother UX and lower fees.

— Jeffrey Albus

In crypto, hype fades but sustainable ecosystems win. Learn how top protocols are building for the long haul.

Join Blockworks Research, MegaETH, Flipside Crypto and Avalanche for this upcoming Roundtable.

📅 July 31 | 12 PM EST

A message from Erbil Karaman, co-founder of Huma Finance: