SOL, the native currency of the Solana blockchain, has doubled its price since mid-December to hover around $21, reaching as high as $24 earlier this week, roughly where it stood before investors started fretting over its entanglement to beleaguered crypto exchange FTX and its sister company Alameda Research. Over the past week alone, SOL has risen 22%, up 114% this year. The surge started after a favourable tweet by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who expressed “hope” that the Solana community “gets its fair chance to thrive” in a tweet, shortly after SOL had plunged to a record low of $8.19.

Buterin’s comment headed off damage from reports that the token was the second-largest holding of Alameda Research, the trading arm of FTX whose unruly balance sheet sparked FTX’s descent into bankruptcy protection. However, SOL had already declined significantly prior to the FTX revelation. According to data from DefiLlama, the total value locked (TVL) on the Solana chain dropped 96% in 2022, from $6.68 billion in January to $206 million at the end of December. (Coindesk)