Solana was touted as the cryptocurrency that would challenge ether with an eco-friendlier approach, faster transaction speeds and more consistent costs.

Investors who made that bet had a miserable year. The token’s market cap collapsed from over $55 billion in January to barely above $3 billion at year-end.

related investing news

Among Solana’s biggest problems in late 2022 was its close relationship to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who faces eight criminal fraud charges after his crypto exchange went bankrupt last month. The disgraced former crypto billionaire was one of Solana’s most public boosters, touting the advantages of the blockchain technology and investing over a half-billion dollars in Solana tokens.

“Sell me all you want,” Bankman-Fried told one skeptic in January 2021. “Then go f— off.”

Bankman-Fried’s companies held nearly $1.2 billion worth of the token and associated assets in June, according to documents reviewed by CoinDesk.

When FTX fell apart, investors bailed on Solana to the tune of about $8 billion. But in recent days, as the rest of the crypto world has been relatively quiet and prices stable, Solana has plummeted further.

Two of the biggest non-fungible token (NFT) projects built on Solana announced their migration off of Solana’s platform on Christmas…