"Solana Plunges Amid Libra Scandal and Waning Meme Coin Buzz"

Solana, the native cryptocurrency of the smart contracts blockchain, has plummeted to its lowest price since mid-October, trading just below $153 on Monday. This decline comes amid ongoing concerns about its association with the Libra token scandal and cooling sentiment toward other meme coin initiatives that have favored the network.

The native cryptocurrency of the smart contracts Solana blockchain is trading just below $153, down 9% over the past 24 hours, according to crypto markets data provider CoinGecko. SOL has dropped 25% during the past two weeks, and dipped as low as $151 on Monday.

The decline comes just 10 days after Libra lost about 90% of its value in hours, sparking accusations of fraud and calls for the impeachment of Argentine President Javier Mllei, who had promoted the token that was supposed to help the country’s small businesses in a post on X. Milei subsequently deleted the post and denied knowledge about the coin’s creation.

It also follows investors’ retreat from the once-torrid meme coin market, and even as multiple major asset managers have applied for exchange-traded funds based on the spot price of Solana—the sixth-largest digital asset with a $75 billion market capitalization.

On Friday, Franklin Templeton followed Grayscale, Bitwise, Canary, 21Shares, and VanEck in seeking a Securities and Exchange Commission green light for Solana-based funds. Bloomberg Senior Analyst Eric Balchunas has penciled in a 70% probability that the SEC will approve the ETFs.

In a text to Decrypt, Mark Connors, the chief investment officer at New York-based Bitcoin investment advisory Risk Dimensions, wrote that token launchpad Pump.fun could no “longer carry the day for the faster blockchain, leaving investors favoring integrity over potential profit as market uncertainty sets in.”

Meme coin buzz hasn't completely disappeared; traders speculated across social media over the weekend on whether rapper Kanye West would follow through on his X posts and launch his own coin. But while traders still see glimmers of opportunity, the hype has indeed quieted compared to January and the launch of Donald Trump’s coin.

The fallout from the Libra launch and confusion on who owns Kanye’s online [name