Solana’s (SOL) price has dropped by over 15% in the past 48 hours, as a series of memecoin scandals sours sentiment on the network. The SOL/ETH ratio, which had peaked at more than 0.08 SOL per 1 ETH in February, reversed course and declined to around 0.06 SOL/ETH on February 18.
Industry experts say that Solana’s narrative as a retail-friendly chain has been damaged by the scandals. “Solana’s narrative as the best retail onboarding chain has just flipped to being associated with scammy behavior and insider trading,” said Andy, co-founder of venture firm Rollup Ventures.
Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) is gaining traction, with its spot price staging a nearly 30% rebound in February and its transaction fees increasing significantly. Experts attribute this growth to extensive development activity in areas such as real-world assets (RWA) and agentic artificial intelligence, which are happening mainly on the ETH ecosystem.
Industry insiders also point to the decline of Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Meteora, where traders claim that popular tokens were sniped, or bought up early and sold soon after for quick gains. This has further damaged the SOL ecosystem, according to pseudonymous trader Runner XBT.
In contrast, Ethereum is looking comparatively strong, with data from layer-2s more than tripling since March 2024, driving up fee revenues for mainnet. With extensive development activity in key areas, Ethereum is poised to benefit from mainstream adoption.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/traders-eye-sol-eth-reversal-memecoin-fallout