This Is Why Solana Dropped Below $150 Amid Congestion Fixes

Solana developers have issued an urgent update to tackle the blockchain network’s ongoing congestion challenges.

Anza, a prominent infrastructure developer, successfully deployed version 1.18.11 as a congestion fix to the Solana devnet and invited validators to test its efficacy.

Network Fixes Target Congestion

The Solana-focused software development firm urged all testnet validators to upgrade their systems promptly to facilitate a thorough analysis of the impact of the proposed solution.

Over the past weeks, Solana has grappled with elevated transaction failure rates, exacerbated by an influx of bots exploiting meme coin activity. As a result, several Solana-based protocols were forced to postpone their launch due to network congestion.

Notably, there are indications that the situation might be improving. Phantom, the foremost wallet provider on Solana, revealed that its transaction success rates have significantly improved.

“For the past 24 hours, our metrics show that transactions have been landing nearly 90% of the time, almost a 5x improvement from a week ago. Sending and swapping in Phantom should be much more reliable now. If you are still having issues, retrying should be a quick fix,” Phantom said.

Meanwhile, Jacob Creech, the head of developer relations at the Solana Foundation, praised the network’s response to the congestion issues.

“In the 2022 network congestion, core engineers were the main contributors to fixing the problem. Now we have core engineers, dapps, validators, RPCs, developers, and more laser-focused on improving UX. Solana’s developer community is maturing. We will get past this and be even better for it,” Creech stated.

Despite improving the network’s transaction situation, Solana experienced a 12% decline during the past day. This pushed its price below $140 for the first time in a month. However, the decline mirrored a broader market downturn that prompted over $860 million in crypto liquidations across major assets, including Bitcoin.

This price movement marks a shock occurrence for Solana. SOL’s price has been on an uptrend, rising by around 50% year-to-date. But, it has considerably struggled since peaking at above $200 in mid-March, declining by more than 13% during the past week, according to BeInCrypto data.

Read more: Solana (SOL) Price Prediction 2024/2025/2030

These moves prompted market traders to warn that, depending on the success of the congestion fix, the current downtrend could see Solana’s price drop to as low as $120.

“Going to be an interesting week for Solana. If that fix is working Monday, I can see us pump straight back to $200. If not, we’ll probably see more negative price action and possibly a fall to $120-130 ranges,” Crypto trader Thor wrote.