Solana Loses 97% of Traders in 2025 as Institutional Funds Withdraw

Activity on the Solana network has dropped 97% from its peak in November 2024 as retail investors continue to buy in while institutional wallets withdraw. This cryptocurrency reached an all-time high of $296 in November 2024 but has declined nearly 58% since then, as on-chain data shows a clear disparity between wallet size and trading behavior.
What happened: Institutional retreat
Crypto trader Ardi revealed that buying pressure was dominated by retail-sized wallets conducting transactions from $0 to $1,000 since Solana's peak in November.
Distribution began before the all-time high, with selling volume increasing months prior to October 10, 2024, indicating that large investors had planned to exit before the price decline.
Average wallets handling from $0 to $100,000 and institutional-scale wallets managing from $100,000 to $10 million have decreased evenly over the past 13 months. Retail wallets have shown continuous growth during the same period, indicating small investors believe SOL is still undervalued despite institutional withdrawals.
On-chain data shows an almost perfect correlation between Solana demand and memecoin activity on the network.
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Why this matters: Revenue collapse
Investor and trader Jas reported that the number of active Solana traders per month has decreased from around 30 million to below 1 million in 2025, a 97% decline in network activity.
Network revenue has fallen fivefold year-over-year, from $2.5 billion in 2024 to $500 million in 2025.
Ethereum generated $1.4 billion in revenue this year and outperformed Solana by 56% from the start of the year. "The future of SOL may depend less on memes and more on what follows them," Jas said.
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