Nearly $1 Billion in Solana (SOL) to Be Unlocked on November 10

A massive amount of Solana (SOL) tokens worth nearly $1 billion, representing 13% of the circulating supply, is set to be unlocked on November 10.

A large portion of Solana validators have halted staking of SOL (47 million SOL, valued at $845 million) in preparation for withdrawal within the next 24 hours. This represents 13% of the token supply, making it the second-largest unlock event in Solana’s history, occurring at a time of significant adverse conditions for the project and the broader crypto market.

According to data from Solana Compass, the unlock event will conclude at the end of Epoch 370, expected around 4:30 PM (Vietnam Time) on November 10. Epoch 370 typically lasts two days, during which validators lock their tokens on the network and can choose to unlock staked tokens at the end of each epoch.

The demand for unlocking SOL has surged over the past few hours, increasing from 18 million SOL in the afternoon of November 9 to nearly 50 million SOL by evening. This indicates that many validators are feeling "impatient" due to the continuous decline in SOL's price and have decided to withdraw their funds. In contrast, only 1.8 million SOL ($36 million) is currently participating in staking.

The reduction in staked SOL is likely to impact transaction processing on the Solana network. On the evening of November 9, Crypto.com announced it would temporarily suspend USDT and USDC deposits and withdrawals via Solana effective immediately, while still supporting withdrawals via Ethereum and Cronos. It remains unclear if this move is a precautionary measure in anticipation of potential issues with Solana.

Anyone else just got this? pic.twitter.com/LmX5LtXV4x
— Lars (@lars0x) November 9, 2022

As reported by Coin68, Solana's current downturn was triggered by a market sell-off following the collapse of FTX and ongoing drama with Binance’s CEO. For more details on the evolving situation, check the links at the end of the article.

SOL’s price has been in freefall today, dropping 30% from $23 to $16.24 over the past 24 hours. It remains to be seen how the upcoming unlock will affect the price.

4H Chart of SOL/USDT on Binance as of 9:00 PM on November 9, 2022

The Total Value Locked (TVL) in the Solana ecosystem has also decreased by over 42% in the last 24 hours, according to DeFiLlama.

Bitcoin (BTC) has reached a 2022 low of $17,166, while Ethereum (ETH) has dropped 20% from $1,425 to $1,188 in the past 24 hours. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization has fallen below the $1 trillion mark, currently standing at $901 billion.

4H Chart of BTC/USDT on Binance as of 9:03 PM on November 9, 2022