- The Solana circulating supply has been supplemented and then reduced by the team
- Aggrieved investors group claim Solana is becoming “the crypto scandal of 2020”
- Circulating supply now almost double the original claim from the team
The Solana circulating supply farce continues to unravel, to the point where a disgruntled group of investors have taken to Medium to document their experiences. The group, which calls itself Solana Traitors, alleges that the project is becoming “the crypto scandal of 2020” and criticizes the team for mishandling the circulating supply issue and lying about their intentions with regard to supplementing it from external wallets.
Solana Circulating Supply Problems Began in Last Month
The issues with the Solana circulating supply date back to April when the token listed on Binance with a stated circulating supply of 8.25 million. However, an unlocked Solana wallet containing 13 million SOL tokens was discovered by a member of the community towards the end of the month, some 5 million more than was stated by the team upon the Binance listing.
This discrepancy was put down to 11.36 million Solana tokens loaned out to market makers which the team hadn’t considered part of the actual circulating supply. This outraged the community and put the actual Solana circulating supply at a whopping 19.71 million.
Solana CEO Anatoly Yakovenko promised to retrieve and burn the market makers’ tokens within 30 days, adding that there were no plans to introduce more tokens into the circulating supply, and that if any such plans were raised in the future then the community would be informed. The market responded positively to this news, with the Solana token price jumping 30% on the anticipated token burn.
May Brings a Nasty Surprise for Token Holders
Fast forward 30 days and things have seemingly gone from bad to worse. A Medium post from Solana stated that they had only been able to retrieve 3.3 million of the 11.36 million market maker tokens, leaving 8 million still unaccounted for. The team simply added 8 million into the supply from an external wallet before removing the entire 11.36 million from circulation, although of course only 3.3 million actually left. This fact hasn’t gone unnoticed by Solana Traitors:
The original commitment was to remove ◎11,365,067 tokens FROM THE MARKET AND THAT THERE WAS NO PLANS TO INTRODUCE MORE TOKENS TO THE MARKET AND ANY PLANS WOULD BE PUBLICLY BEFORE HAND. Not only did they outright lie to everyone twice, they waited to a Saturday of a holiday weekend to dump the news.
Solana states that the circulating supply now stands at 16.35 million, with Solana Traitors labeling the entire fiasco as “a month long con on its community.” The Solana token price has dropped significantly since the announcement of the market maker token buyback plan in April, “Effectively pulling the rug out of all buyers who expected a price increase due to the upcoming reduction of circulating supply.”
CoinGecko has the Solana circulating supply as 8 million, whereas CoinMarketCap doesn’t list it at all, seemingly waiting for confirmation before committing itself to a figure. However this shakes out, it is clear that Solana has made a pig’s ear of dealing with the issue and could have potentially damaged the trust placed in them by the community, something that cannot be fixed just by adding more in from an external wallet.
