Solana whale briefly sends mSOL plummeting by selling more than $5 million of token

Markets • December 12, 2023, 2:33PM EST

Published 1 minute earlier on

The Block Illustration by Iris Cho for The Block

Quick Take

Solana-based liquid staking derivative mSOL fell by as much as 18% on Tuesday as one wallet offloaded more than $5 million worth of the token.
The price then quickly rebounded.

In less than a half hour, the price of Marinade Finance's Solana SOL +0.13% -based liquid staking derivative mSOL dropped like a rock on Tuesday.

The mSOL token fell below $67 at 12:35 p.m. ET after trading around $77 just minutes earlier, according to The Block price data. Overall, mSOL fell as much as 18% on Tuesday before it quickly rebounded, soaring back above $77 as of 1:57 p.m. ET.

One large holder, or whale, appears to have driven the steep decline by swapping more than $5 million worth of the mSOL derivative for SOL, according to The Block Research data.

Solana-based derivative mSOL price movement. Image: The Block

RELATED INDICES

See crypto indices

Introduction of incentive program

At the beginning of this year, Marinade Finance launched a new token incentive program to reward users who deposit their solana (SOL) coins in exchange for the liquid staking derivative called mSOL. Dubbed "Open Doors," the program intended to give out up to 160 million marinade tokens as rewards to users throughout this year.

The goal was to grow the amount of solana locked on the Marinade platform by 40 million SOL, the team said on Twitter at the time.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

About Author

RT Watson is a senior reporter at The Block who covers a wide array of topics including U.S.-based companies, blockchain gaming and NFTs. Formerly covered entertainment at The Wall Street Journal, where he wrote about Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. and the creator economy while focusing primarily on technological disruption across media. Previous to that he covered corporate, economic and political news in Brazil while at Bloomberg. RT has interviewed a diverse cast of characters including CEOs, media moguls, top influencers, politicians, blue-collar workers, drug traffickers and convicted criminals. Holds a master's degree in Digital Sociology.