From 20 SOL to 2 SOL: What Happened to Solana's Deflation Narrative?

💀 20 SOL → 2 SOL
How much of Solana's deflation fantasy has fallen apart?

(Eng ver. x.com19891223541199…

Looking at the $SOL chart lately, you may have wondered:

“Onchain activity is booming, so why isn't the price showing the same bullish upside it used to?”

There's one conclusion.

The deflationary engine that once helped push Solana higher has either switched off or changed direction. That engine was Pump.fun (@pumpdotfun), and Mayhem Mode changed how it worked.

The old Pump.fun: “A system where 20 SOL per token was locked up and effectively burned”

In very simple terms, the old Pump.fun worked like this:

– Someone launched a memecoin on Pump.fun.
– People bought in with SOL.
– That SOL went into an LP, or liquidity pool.
– Whether the token was rugged or died naturally, the SOL in the LP could not be withdrawn or was effectively locked forever.

Even if the coin went to zero, the SOL remained trapped in the pool onchain. In practice, it worked like a burn.

So degens thought about it this way:

“If a token runs its full course on Pump.fun, roughly 10–20 SOL gets stuck in the pool and never comes out.”

That gave rise to the shorthand:

“20 SOL per token is locked up and effectively burned.”

While others burned money on Pump.fun, SOL was locked onchain, making the SOL I held relatively scarcer.

New supply kept coming through inflation, but it felt as though Pump.fun was absorbing and burning it. That was the core of Solana's deflation fantasy.

Pump.fun after Mayhem: “A system where barely 2 SOL per token remains”

Then, on 2025-11-12, Pump.fun CEO Alon (@a1lon9) turned on Mayhem Mode.

– Total token supply: 1B → 2B, with the entire additional 1B allocated to a bot.
– Initial LP liquidity is lower than before.
– The bot buys and sells at random in the same pool as human traders for 24 hours.
– The bot pays zero Pump.fun fees on its trades.

It's presented in terms such as “AI agent,” “experiment” and “helping initial liquidity,” but the mechanics point in a different direction.

The bot has a free token allocation and pays no fees. If it starts selling heavily, it can drain the entire LP.

On X (Twitter), quite a few people have already posted screenshots of “Pool dried” errors saying they can't sell.

Previously, even if a token failed, a double-digit amount of SOL remained locked in the LP, giving the chain the equivalent of a burn and an increase in TVL.

Now, when a token fails, the bot can drain the LP and take the SOL with it.

I would sum up the change like this:

Old Pump.fun: In practical terms, roughly 20 SOL per token was locked in the LP and effectively burned.

Mayhem now: In practical terms, barely 2 SOL per token remains, or close to zero in the worst cases.

That's the change:

20 SOL → 2 SOL. 📉

It comes down to one number: the amount of SOL that gets “locked” onchain each time a token runs its course on Pump.fun has fallen by roughly that much.

Why SOL may be less bullish than before

Issuance, or inflation, continues as before. Native fee burns alone make it difficult to build a “burns exceed issuance” narrative like $ETH's.

There used to be an external deflationary engine offsetting that: Pump.fun.

Now:

– Inflation continues.
– The deflationary effect of Pump.fun has weakened.
– In some cases, Mayhem removes SOL altogether.

The old chain of events:

Onchain activity surges → SOL gets locked in Pump.fun → a narrative of something close to effective deflation.

The current chain of events:

Onchain activity surges → Pump.fun and Mayhem generate volume, but little SOL gets locked → a narrative of degen volume plus inflation.

Under the current structure, it's harder to make as bullish a case as before.

This isn't a declaration that “SOL is finished.” I just want to leave one question:

Why did it move so easily before, and why does it feel so weighed down now?

For me, one number sums up Solana's tokenomics today:

20 SOL → 2 SOL.

I don't see it as just a joke, but as a symbol of the direction in which Solana is changing.

NFA.

For informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Invest at your own risk.

This material is for informational purposes only and is not a solicitation to invest. All investment decisions are your own responsibility.