The recent surge, in the price of Solana SOL -1.46% (SOL) has been quite impressive and multifaceted. Within a span of 24 hours SOL witnessed a 18% increase pushing its market capitalization to $41.9 billion. This surge propelled it ahead of Binance Chains BNB, which had a market cap of $41.8 billion positioning SOL as the cryptocurrency by market capitalization for the first time in over two years.
The rise in Solanas price is noteworthy when considering its performance throughout the year. At the end of 2022 SOL was valued below $10 mainly influenced by its association with the defunct FTX exchange and former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman Fried. However within a years time SOLs price reached $100 making it one of the performing crypto assets of that year. This growth is particularly striking as SOL gained than 30% in value during the preceding week outperforming all major cryptocurrencies during that period.
In terms of FTXs involvement their holdings of SOL have significantly appreciated due to this rally. Initially valued at $1.16 billion this year these holdings are now worth over $4.2 billion. FTX was an advocate, for Solana. Held a substantial amount of SOL tokens even after declaring bankruptcy in 2022.
Out of these FTX holds, around 55.8 million SOL tokens. The majority (42.2 million) is currently locked and not available for trading on the market.
According to Spot On Chain data between October 24 and December 14 2023 FTX and Alameda transferred 13.22 million SOL tokens to the market, which could potentially amount to a sale around $666 million. However despite these transactions FTX and Alameda still hold a number of SOL tokens. They have 40.5 million tokens (valued at around $4 billion) locked up with plans for release in 2025. Every month 609,000 SOL tokens ($60 million) become unlocked for trading, which represents 1% of FTXs total SOL holdings. There is also a plan to unlock an amount of 7.5 million SOL tokens on March 1st in the year 2025.
The increase in value of SOL has also improved the recovery for those who owe debts to FTX. The rise in value of FTXs cryptocurrency assets could enable them to repay their creditors leading firms to seek opportunities to acquire claims at discounted rates between 60 70 cents on the dollar. If FTX and Alameda decide to sell their SOL holdings of all at once it may not have a significant immediate impact, on the market.
However the rise, in SOLs price, over the year suggests that FTXs borrowers could potentially make profits surpassing $3 billion from these assets.