Jack Kubinec 

Mert Mumtaz

Jeffrey Albus

The essential source for all things Solana — exclusive news, deep analysis, and the latest trends.

Lightspeed

Gm! This week we're back with another weekly roundup episode to discuss the launch of PumpSwap &amp; the data around meme coins on Solana. We deep dive into are meme coins really dead, Tron flips Solana in REV, the STABLE act draft &amp; more. Enjoy! --Follow Dan: https://x.com/smyyguyFollow Jack: https://x.com/whosknaveFollow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/LightspeedpodhqSubscribe to the Lightspeed Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed--Grab your tickets to Permissionless IV. Use code LIGHTSPEED10 for 10% off: https://blockworks.co/event/permissionless-iv--Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/--(00:00) Introduction (01:03) The Launch Of PumpSwap (12:18) SocialFi (20:05) Are Meme Coins Dead? (21:36) Tron Flips Solana In REV (27:15) The STABLE Act Draft --Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Jack, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

Are Meme Coins Really Dead? | Weekly Roundup

Gm! This week Shayon Sengupta joins the show to discuss a recent research report published by Multicoin Capital on Jito. We deep dive into the Jito thesis, token buybacks, why MEV drives L1 value accrual &amp; more. Enjoy! Link to the Jito (JTO) Asset Report: https://x.com/shayonsengupta/status/1896994763842445423--Follow Shayon: https://x.com/shayonsenguptaFollow Jack: https://x.com/whosknaveFollow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/LightspeedpodhqSubscribe to the Lightspeed Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed Join the Lightspeed Manlets Collective Telegram: https://t.me/+QUl_ZOj2nMJlZTEx--Grab your tickets to Permissionless IV. Use code LIGHTSPEED10 for 10% off: https://blockworks.co/event/permissionless-iv--Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/--(00:00) Introduction (01:11) The Jito Thesis (07:01) Token Buybacks (14:17) Token Value Accrual (21:38) Jito’s Impact On Solana (37:07) Firedancer (42:16) Jito Restaking (47:11) Why MEV Drives L1 Value --Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Jack, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

The Ultimate Jito Thesis | Shayon Sengupta

Gm! This week we have an episode with Leah Wald live from DAS NY 2025. We deep dive into the launch of Solana ETFs in 2025, the SOL Strategies playbook, Leah's current crypto thesis &amp; more. Enjoy!--Follow Leah: https://x.com/LeahWaldFollow Jack: https://x.com/whosknaveFollow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/LightspeedpodhqSubscribe to the Lightspeed Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed Join the Lightspeed Manlets Collective Telegram: https://t.me/+QUl_ZOj2nMJlZTEx--Grab your tickets to Permissionless IV. Use code LIGHTSPEED10 for 10% off: https://blockworks.co/event/permissionless-iv--Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/--(00:00) Introduction (00:22) Launch Of The Solana Futures ETF (05:54) Are Institutions Bullish? (08:41) Solana’s Ultimate Vision (11:08) The Laine Acquisition Playbook (13:04) Is SOL Strategies The Microstrategy Of Solana? (16:06) The Solana Thesis (19:10) Final Thoughts --Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Jack, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

The Solana Playbook With Leah Wald

Jeff Albus

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Solana is waffling around the $130 mark after a dip under $123 earlier this week. And we seem to be trailing the broader market hokey-pokey around the ongoing <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-to-unveil-tariff-policy-plans">Trump tariff drama</a> and bitcoin&#8217;s rejection below $88k.&nbsp;



But a more compelling story might be bubbling beneath the surface of this modest recovery.



Solana has been in cooldown mode for a while now, following its record-breaking Q1 surge driven by election euphoria and memecoin speculation. Daily network fees have <a href="https://defillama.com/fees/solana">plunged</a> more than 97% from their January peak. Transaction volume has <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Solana?chainTokenVolume=true">cratered</a>. Even the retail-magnet pump.fun is <a href="https://dune.com/queries/4322646/7260251">fatigued</a>: Fewer than 1% of new tokens now reach tradable status, and bonding levels are at their lowest since January.



But the cooldown isn&#8217;t a collapse. Not yet. It looks more like a recomposition, actually. The memecoin tide is receding in the wake of fresh Solana protocols like Zeta Market&#8217;s <a href="https://x.com/bulletxyz_/status/1899941207155114495">dedicated</a> <a href="https://x.com/bulletxyz_/status/1899941207155114495">trading layer</a> Bullet, BlackRock&#8217;s <a href="https://x.com/Blockworks_/status/1900279952630579432">tokenized $BUIDL fund</a>, and Solana-based Zebec Network&#8217;s <a href="https://x.com/Zebec_HQ/status/1905268164159553627">crypto debit card</a>. None of these are really designed for peak virality. They&#8217;re just useful. It&#8217;s crazy, I know, but they actually have genuine utility. Madness.



Meanwhile, Solana ETF filings from Fidelity and Franklin Templeton are <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-exchange-etf-event-vegas">advancing</a>. Institutional futures products <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sol-futures-etfs-to-launch">are live</a>. BlackRock is onboarding real-world dollars. Solana&#8217;s uptime is still <a href="https://status.solana.com/uptime">perfect</a>. Validator diversity is holding. It&#8217;s actually wild that the price hasn&#8217;t caught up with all the good news yet.



Technically, SOL is hanging on to a key support zone. Recent price drawdowns mirror the drop in activity, even as the foundation underneath looks sturdier and sturdier. The only thing that&#8217;s really changed is that the speculative froth is gone. But what&#8217;s left behind is evidence of structural integrity.



Now, all we need is the façade: tools, platforms, utilities and apps that solve real problems, but which wear the same chaotic, meme-dripping, degen-vibe game-feel that brought the whole world to Solana in the first place. The pipes are ready; we just need to get the milk and honey flowing.



My best guess is that the next up cycle will belong to whoever figures out how to make actual usefulness feel like irreverent mischief.



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Post meme-ism: Solana’s quiet pivot to utility

Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Miller Whitehouse-Levine, former CEO of the DeFi Education Fund, yesterday announced his latest venture as founder and CEO of the Solana Policy Institute.&nbsp;



Then, this afternoon, Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith said she would become the fledgling non-profit’s first president in May.



The non-profit’s launch and big-name hires in the crypto policy space will grow Solana’s small-ish footprint in Washington DC. The new Institute joins Solana infrastructure venue Jito and venture capital firm Multicoin as the most public Solana organizations doing business in Washington.  



Smith started as CEO of the Blockchain Association — perhaps DC’s most well-known crypto policy organization — in 2018, according to her LinkedIn page. Whitehouse-Levine got his start in crypto policy working under Smith at the Blockchain Association.



“This isn’t goodbye to the industry I love – just a shift in perspective,” Smith said in an X post announcing her departure and new role.



After working at the Blockchain Association, Whitehouse-Levine served as CEO of the DeFi Education Fund from 2021, until a couple weeks ago, when he stepped down to launch the Solana Policy Institute. Whitehouse-Levine only began working on the Institute in mid-January, he told me in an interview.



Whitehouse-Levine said market structure legislation — which the Republican-led House of Representatives is currently <a href="https://www.cryptoinamerica.com/p/house-to-hold-hearing-on-crypto-market?selection=8a48c439-2a4d-4e76-8fde-cffd7a29327a&amp;triedRedirect=true#:~:text=Miller%20Whitehouse-Levine%2C%20the%20founder%20of%20the%20DeFi%20Education%20Fund%20%E2%80%93%20D">working</a> on proposing — is “critically important” for the crypto industry. He balked at listing Solana-specific policies for 2025.&nbsp;



“Our objective is not to establish some regulatory capture or tech-specific policies,” Whitehouse-Levine said.



Still, not everyone looked favorably upon the Solana ecosystem’s foray into the decidedly-not-cypherpunk realm of US federal policy.



“L1s trying to influence politics is the exact opposite kind of energy that brought me and so many others into crypto,” David Hoffman, co-host of the popular Ethereum-leaning podcast Bankless, wrote on X.&nbsp;



But for better or worse, having boots on the ground in DC may be table stakes for blockchains in these heady days for the US crypto industry. Congress has its Bitcoin bulls. Ripple built up its DC infrastructure through years of regulatory battles. 



After a year of dramatic <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/how-solana-became-the-peoples-chain">usage and developer growth</a>, Solana is entering the political fray.



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‘Solana Policy Institute’ nets CEOs of Blockchain Association, DeFi Education Fund

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Following Hyperliquid&#8217;s $13 million <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hyperliquid-jelly-short-blockworks-research">brush with disaster</a>, some in Solana&#8217;s orbit are wondering: Could Jupiter&#8217;s JLP vault — a similar product to Hyperliquid’s vulnerable vault — face a similar exploit?



Nope.



That&#8217;s my short but genuinely confident answer. Let&#8217;s unpack why.



To recap briefly: Last week, some unknown trader thought they&#8217;d get cute by manipulating the price of thinly-traded Jelly-my-Jelly (JELLY) memecoin on decentralized perp exchange Hyperliquid. The presumed goal was to mobilize a massive short squeeze, allowing them to profit from leveraged long positions while forcing the protocol to absorb the loss from their short.&nbsp;



The attacker’s leveraged long positions quickly created over $13 million in unrealized losses to Hyperliquid’s HLP risk vault and an emergency shutdown that forcibly closed all JELLY positions at a price favorable to Hyperliquid&#8217;s balance sheet.



Now, we can argue <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hyperliquid-decentralization-validator-put">whether it was a bailout</a>, anathema to a decentralized ethos, or just pragmatic damage control another time. The point is, it worked.



By forcibly settling all JELLY positions at the exploiter’s short entry of $0.0095, the protocol basically reversed the attack. Which is to say that Hyperliquid actually, hilariously, ended up posting a profit of around $700,000 while the attacker walked away with less than they deposited. The Hyperliquid team promptly assured users they would be made whole through the Hyper Foundation, and everyone lived happily ever after.



Hooray.



But if perps DEXs can be attacked, that raises questions about Jupiter, Solana&#8217;s biggest DEX aggregator and perps exchange. Like Hyperliquid, Jupiter&#8217;s platform is powered by a vault that acts as the counterparty to all trades. This would be the very creatively named (/s) Jupiter Liquidity Provider pool, or JLP. The JLP collects trading fees and earns big when traders lose but takes a hit when they win.



HLP. JLP. It sounds pretty same-same. So with that in mind, could this vault be squeezed in a similar way? In theory, yes. Anything&#8217;s possible. I&#8217;m not going to call the Titanic unsinkable. But Jupiter&#8217;s architecture makes it an improbable outcome in practice.



First, consider its asset list. No offense to JELLY, but the token had very little liquidity, making price manipulation easier. Hyperliquid listed it because it prioritized volume, novelty, and a wide-open asset strategy to attract degens.&nbsp;



Jupiter doesn&#8217;t do that. Its perpetuals are limited to major assets like SOL, ETH, and wrapped BTC. That decision alone eliminates the kind of thin-market vulnerability that made JELLY so exploitable. A Jupiter representative said the platform’s maximum order size is much smaller than Hyperliquid’s as well.



Second, price execution. Hyperliquid relies on its internal orderbook to match traders directly against each other. Users submit their own limit orders, giving them more flexible, dynamic pricing. However, that also leads to a plethora of exploitable scenarios. A motivated attacker can influence the price displayed on the platform, setting up artificial moves that trigger cascading liquidations and/or dislocations. No bueno, compadres.



Jupiter&#8217;s perp markets operate in a totally different way, choosing instead to execute at oracle prices from external sources like Pyth. Even if a trader tried to pump the spot price of SOL on another exchange, they&#8217;d still be trading against the median on-chain price, not a manipulated in-platform quote.



Frankly, it&#8217;s just harder to game the house when the pricing comes from outside the casino.



Third, Jupiter handles risk with guardrails, not emergency exits. JLP is always the counterparty. If a trade gets liquidated, the levers for that would pull automatically at the set Oracle price. As far as we know, there&#8217;s no handoff to a second vault, no delay that a bad actor can game, and no pause for a team call or validator vote. Losses go straight to the pool.



Again, one could argue this makes the system blunt or unforgiving, but it&#8217;s something LPs accept as part and parcel (and the reasons why should now be pretty clear).



That&#8217;s not to say that JLP is immune to risk, because it&#8217;s not. It regularly takes losses in the case of a one-sided market where most traders win, for instance. But Jupiter bakes in defenses for that, too. Traders pay borrow fees to open leveraged positions, which go straight to the pool. If everyone piles into longs, funding rates rise to balance the associated risks.&nbsp;



Could some unforeseen scenario force Jupiter to intervene someday in a way that its users find questionable? Yes. Every protocol has an edge case. But in this specific scenario, Jupiter seems to have designed JLP to absorb such hazards. While Hyperliquid had to delist a token to save its vault, Jupiter has taken the opposite approach: limit risk at the door.



So, with that in mind — rest easy, Lightspeeders.&nbsp;



Jupiter isn’t playing the same game Hyperliquid nearly lost.



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Jupiter’s risk vault unlikely to face Hyperliquid-style attack

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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In 2023 and 2024, a number of Solana startups <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/jito-airdrop-value">generated native tokens</a> to reward users and let investors and early contributors book returns.



Much of the attention surrounding these tokens went to how lucrative they were for recipients of so-called airdrops — and actual utility took a backseat, especially with a US regulatory regime eager to classify tokens as securities. Now with a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/washington-dc-blockchain-summit-takeaways">friendlier regulatory outlook</a> and the airdrop flow being stemmed, some are looking to how these new native tokens can become valuable assets.&nbsp;



One such example is early Solana investor Multicoin Capital, which recently published an asset report for JTO, the native token of its portfolio company Jito. Multicoin’s forward-looking base case priced JTO at $6.80, roughly three times its current price. I had the report’s author, Multicoin investment partner Shayon Sengupta, as a guest on the Lightspeed podcast this week to discuss his valuation further.



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Oz2uew_I9PI?si=uuQ2mnt6lO3MB-Fb" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>







“If you assume Solana <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana">REV</a> is going to increase and you assume that demand for priority blockspace is going to increase, Jito is going to be the direct beneficiary of that,” Sengupta said.



That’s likely true. 93% of the Solana network’s stake runs on the Jito-Solana client, which offers off-chain blockspace auctions that maximize economic returns for validators and makes it easier for users to land transactions. Jito tips from these auctions made up around 56% of Solana’s total REV in February. That’s not to mention Jito offering Solana’s largest LST in JitoSOL — a product it seems to be angling to have included in Solana staking ETFs.



What I’m less convinced of is the concept that Jito’s success as a company will trickle down to the JTO token. JTO’s price-to-earnings ratio swung wildly this year when Jito’s revenue greatly increased and its token price stayed roughly the same. That’s probably because there is currently no direct connection between Jito revenue and the JTO token.&nbsp;



The Jito Foundation — which oversees Jito’s stake pool as well as JTO — takes in revenue, but if the foundation were to do things like distribute its revenue to token holders, JTO might start to look uncomfortably like a security. That’s likely part of why the Uniswap Foundation is still yet to distribute fee revenue to UNI holders. Sengupta hinted to me that this may change.



“Our general framing is that as capital markets mature, you end up in a stage where revenues are going to matter,” Sengupta said, vaguely citing “changing policy dynamics” as one potential reason why.



Donald Trump’s presidency has brought previously unheard of legal possibilities to the crypto industry. Can it make native tokens great again?



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Multicoin estimates a 3x for Jito’s token

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Two weeks ago, Solana validators <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/what-simd-0228-failing-means-for-solana">voted down SIMD-0228</a>, a proposal that would have significantly cut network inflation. Still, core Solana stakeholders seem interested in cutting inflation at some point, a prospect that would hurt the bottom line for validators.



Validators run Solana’s software to help add blocks to the blockchain, and they’re paid for the labor partly via inflation. Validators can be pretty much anyone with some pricey hardware and internet access, but in a world of lower SOL inflation, it may become less worthwhile to run a Solana validator for financial reasons. Instead, startups building businesses on Solana can reap unique benefits from running a validator, and some have already taken the leap.



“[We] have seen a big push over the past six months,” InfStones head of global sales Parker Poor said when I asked about Solana-native teams wanting to spin up validators.



The Solana payments business Sphere is one such <a href="https://x.com/0xdirichlet/status/1902359663842058379">example</a>, although it runs its validator nodes itself rather than through a staking provider.



“[SOL] issuance getting cut is probably inevitable,” Sphere CEO Arnold Lee said, but he added that running a validator “would probably still be worth it for distribution and alignment,” even if it failed to turn a profit.&nbsp;



Solana’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-core-governance">process for protocol governance</a> involves validators voting on proposals based on their share of delegated staked SOL. Solana startups need to run validators if they want a direct say in the future direction of the network.



“[C]ontested votes like [SIMD-228] underscore the strategic importance of having a seat at the table to make these decisions,” Bernat Fages, co-founder of the node operator firm Firstset, said in a text.



Beyond the rare contested vote, running a validator can confer “soft power” on startup teams as well, Lee said. Users who like the startup’s product might delegate some stake, Lee added. Or it could be even simpler than that: “Toly [Solana’s co-founder] will probably want to retweet you if you’re really active in governance.”



A Solana validator’s financial prospects mainly revolve around the validator’s ability to attract stakers. Solana startups with significant distribution can effectively monetize that mindshare with a validator.&nbsp;



The RPC provider Helius is a popular example of this: The company’s CEO (and Lightspeed podcast co-host) Mert Mumtaz is big on Crypto Twitter, which partly helped Helius to become the largest Solana validator based on publicly available <a href="https://solanabeach.io/validators">records</a>. Solana prioritizes network traffic based on stake, so Helius has an incentive to gather more stake to make its RPCs more effective.&nbsp;



Down the line, there are other ways Solana startups could make use of validator operations. Lee offered an interesting thought: Apps could give users perks like lower fees in exchange for staking with the app’s validator, kind of like a Solana-native customer loyalty program.



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Solana startups spin up validators for revenue and ‘soft power’

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For a moment there, it really looked like Solana prices might hold. We saw a strong weekend rally, with SOL tapping $146 on Monday — its highest since the local top in early March, for what it&#8217;s worth — before retreating slightly on Tuesday.



But as of this afternoon, the price has fallen sharply to $137.



I think it’s fair to speculate that this drop was triggered (at least partially) by one of the year&#8217;s more chaotic memecoin events. It began when a trader <a href="https://x.com/0xAbhiP/status/1904901992985878535">opened a massive $6 million short</a> position on JELLYJELLY — a thinly-traded token tied to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tech-players-interested-in-memecoins">the Jelly-My-Jelly video app</a>, created by Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail and investor Sam Lessin. The trader then deliberately pumped JELLYJELLY’s onchain price, forcing their own liquidation on Hyperliquid, the onchain perp DEX.



The short was absorbed by Hyperliquid&#8217;s Vault, a communal risk pool backed by the HLP token that inherits positions when users fail to cover margin. As the price kept pumping, though, the vault began to bleed out, and eventually was left sitting on an unrealized loss of over $10.5m. Damage control in full effect, Hyperliquid delisted JELLYJELLY, pulled its chart, and hid the vault&#8217;s exposure from public view. That transparency pivot — coming from a platform often celebrated for onchain clarity — obviously spooked traders.



If JELLYJELLY had hit $0.15374, the vault would have <a href="https://x.com/WuBlockchain/status/1904901982206484501">lost its entire $230m reserve</a>, according to onchain analytics cited by Wu Blockchain and others tracking the position in real time. Binance and OKX went full chaos mode, listing 25x leveraged JELLYJELLY perpetuals. However, historical data now shows <a href="https://x.com/WuBlockchain/status/1904925301043585215">the short was settled</a> at $0.0095 — before Binance&#8217;s listing went live — allowing the vault to <a href="https://x.com/WuBlockchain/status/1904925844625383751">close the position in profit</a> with a reported 24-hour PnL of approximately $700k USDC.



According to Hyperliquid, the validator set convened and voted to delist JELLYJELLY perps following signs of suspicious market activity. In the hours since, <a href="https://x.com/HyperliquidX/status/1904923137684496784">the protocol has stated</a> that the Hyper Foundation will make all non-flagged users whole, with reimbursements processed automatically based on onchain data.



Seasoned market watchers seem to be feeling a bit of déjà vu.&nbsp;



&#8220;Feels like when Avi was still prowling the books,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/Blockanalia/status/1904912207785124135">wrote</a> Jito Foundation’s Andrew Thurman, referencing the infamous <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/mango-markets-trader-guilty">Avi Eisenberg squeezes</a> that rocked lending platforms in 2022. &#8220;Now every perps DEX flicking through their tickers are like, &#8216;I listed a murdered squirrel? Is that&#8230;safe?'&#8221;



Who&#8217;s to say if the price drop from $145 to $137 was directly tied to JELLYJELLY? But the sheer velocity of the squeeze — and fears of broader liquidation risk — clearly rattled traders. Sentiment turned risk off almost instantly. Still, there’s a path forward. Solana fundamentals remain strong: daily active wallets, DEX volume, and DePIN usage continue to trend up.



With any luck, the dip may be short-lived. Let&#8217;s just cool it on the drama for the rest of the week, yeah?



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