The wireless hotspot network voted to move to Solana in September.

Helium network founder Amir Haleem tweeted his support late Wednesday for the decentralized wireless network’s migration to Solana, the blockchain ecosystem perhaps hardest-hit by FTX’s sudden implosion.

“None of the criteria we used to evaluate the various L1 blockchains has changed from when we proposed HIP70 and now,” he said, referring to the community vote that saw Helium abandon its own blockchain in favor of Solana’s in late September.

The vote of confidence came after a bloody, 24-hour drawdown in crypto markets in which SOL shed over 40% of its value and Helium’s HNT lost 15%. Haleem, CEO of Helium backer Nova Labs, said he was unfazed by the bear market carnage and pledged to continue apace.

Helium is a crypto-powered wireless hotspot network that until recently operated atop its own blockchain. The move to Solana will see it integrate with that far larger network’s big tech gambits, including Solana’s crypto-centric cellphone.

The project has been plagued by accusations of lying about key partnerships and its actual profitability.

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Hacker proposes to send back stolen MSOL, SOL, and MNGO if Mango Markets promises to pay back bad debt using USDC available in its treasury.

The hacker behind the recent exploit that drained Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Mango Markets of $100 million has proposed an ultimatum to the community.

Posting on Mango’s governance proposal platform, the hacker says they want Mango’s treasury to use its $70 million available in USDC to repay bad debt within the protocol.

This bad debt stems from a bailout that Mango Markets and rival Solana lending platform Solend put together for a large Solana whale that had $207 million in debt spread across multiple lending platforms.

At one time the whale had borrowed 88% of the available USDC on Solend.

The bailout was put together over concern that should the SOL token drop by another 20%, the whale’s positions would be liquidated, which would cause contagion and adversely impact the Solana ecosystem.

As a result of this ongoing issue with Mango Markets, the Wormhole token bridge announced that it’s pausing transfers from Solana.

Part of the hacker’s ultimatum involves a promise from Mango that they will not pursue a criminal investigation or freeze his funds.

Mango’s MNGO token is down 38% on-day.

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Early Wednesday, an unknown attacker drained at least $5 million of SOL and other tokens from Solana digital wallets.

Solana’s SOL token held on to critical support early Wednesday even as a multimillion-dollar hack in the Ethereum alternative ecosystem saw several investors vent frustration, saying they’d consider shorting, or positioning for a decline in, the cryptocurrency.

The exploit saw an unknown attacker drain at least $5 million worth of SOL, SPL and other Solana-based tokens from the Phantom and Slope digital wallets.

The hack drew the investor community’s ire, with several Twitter participants calling a short position in SOL. A trader initiates a short position by selling a borrowed security or its derivative (futures contract) in the expectation of buying it back later at a lower price.

While SOL is trading weaker in the wake of the news, so far sellers have failed to penetrate the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) support at $37.50. At press time, the token changed hands at $38.50, a 4% drop on a 24-hour basis.

SOL’s losses appear muted, considering hacks and exploits have historically led to double-digit price slides in tokens associated with victim crypto platforms. Even so, the hack is terrible optics for the world’s fifth-largest smart-contract blockchain, promising faster and cheaper transactions than Ethereum. Solana’s several network outages in the past 12 months have already dented its appeal as an Ethereum alternative.

What’s helping the token stay resilient? According to observers, SOL’s oversold status and continued holding by large investors, or whales, seem to be supporting the cryptocurrency.

Mumbai-based crypto asset management firm MintingM said: “The SOL supply is controlled by whales and it appears they are holding on to their coin stash.”

Today’s muted response echoes the aftermath of June’s disruption to the Solana-based borrowing and lending service Solend.

On June 19, Solend users voted to take over the protocol’s largest account: a whale whose extremely large margin position was getting close to liquidation. The move aimed at mitigating liquidation risk was heavily criticized on social media as being the antithesis to the concept of decentralized or democratized finance. Yet, SOL jumped over 6% on the same day and gained another 20% in the following six days.

Just as the cryptocurrency sailed through the Solend issue, it will most likely sail through the current hack, MintingM said.

Matthew Dibb, COO and co-founder of Stack Funds, said, “Sol has been underperforming relative to other Layer 1s recently, however, it is proving relatively stable given the hack today.” Nevertheless, he said he expects continued selling pressure over the short run as details of the hack emerge.

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Solana’s SOL token is an unregistered security whose insiders have benefitted while retail suffered, the suit alleged.

A class action suit filed in California federal court last week accuses key players in the Solana ecosystem of illegally profiting from SOL, the blockchain’s native token that according to the suit is an unregistered security.

“The cornerstone of the value of SOL securities is the sum of Solana Labs, Solana Foundation, and [Anatoly] Yakovenko’s management and implementation of the Solana blockchain,” the suit alleged. It described SOL as a highly centralized cryptocurrency that has benefited its insiders to the detriment of retail traders.

Filed by California resident Mark Young, who said he bought SOL in late summer 2021, the suit names Solana Labs, the Solana Foundation, Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko, crypto VC giant Multicoin Capital, Multicoin’s Kyle Samani and trading desk FalconX.

A Solana spokesperson declined to comment. Multicoin and FalconX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the complaint, Young alleges that the way SOL was created and sold meets the three tenets of the Howey Test, a U.S. Supreme Court precedent commonly used as a barometer for whether the sale of something is a security or not.

“Purchasers who bought SOL securities have invested money or given valuable services to a common enterprise, Solana. These purchasers have a reasonable expectation of profit based upon the efforts of the promoters, Solana Labs and the Solana Foundation, to build a blockchain network that will rival Bitcoin and Ethereum and become the accepted framework for transactions on the blockchain,” the filing said, addressing the three forks of the Howey Test.

In the filing, Young pointed to several sales of the SOL token or agreements to sell the SOL token ahead of the public sale of the token.

Solana Labs filed a Form D with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (a filing saying the sale was of securities exempt from SEC registration), noting the company was selling “the future rights” to around 80 million SOL, according to the filing.

Multicoin, a major crypto venture capital firm that has invested heavily across the Solana ecosystem, “offloaded millions of dollars of SOL” onto retail after “relentlessly” promoting the token in spite of Solana blockchain’s tech issues, the suit alleged. This alleged offload passed through FalconX OTC desks, the suit said.

Young’s law firm Roche Freedman also recently filed suit against Binance.US for allegedly misleading investors during the Terra implosion. A lawyer for Roche Freedman did not pick up the phone.

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Pay previously allowed only one-way transfers of Solana-supported assets between users.

Solana Pay will facilitate transaction requests between merchants and users with a feature that went live on the protocol this week, according to a post by Solana developers.

Developers added the transaction request feature to allow merchants to provide customized transaction links to users, such as unique non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or virtual gifts.

The merchant receives the wallet address in the request and can respond with a customized transaction for the customer. This means any Solana transaction would allow interactive requests between a checkout app and a mobile wallet.

“Merchants and brands can create dynamic experiences that send tokens, invitations, and gifts to customers,” the post reads. They could range from the minting of unique NFTs, customized discounts and tokenized loyalty programs.

Merchants can decline to respond to a transaction request, which could be used to allow permissioned payments, such as in cases where authentication is required.

The Pay product previously allowed only one-way transfers between users, such as those of Solana’s SOL, USD Coin (USDC), NFTs, and other supported tokens.

Solana wallets Phantom and Solflare support the new feature, developers said.

SOL prices bumped up 9% in the past 24 hours, CoinGecko data show. The tokens outperformed the market as bitcoin and ether rose 5% on average.

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Investors in the region were more risk-averse this week amid fresh evidence of the U.S. central bank’s commitment to hawkish monetary policy and an unsettled macroeconomic environment; cryptos were mixed.

Bitcoin did a little better on Thursday after tumbling the previous day but still fell slightly, following a downward trend for much of the week. Ether fared slightly better, but other major altcoins were mixed.

Bitcoin, the largest crypto by market cap, was recently trading at about $43,500, about where it stood 24 hours earlier and well off the $47,000 threshold it crossed a week ago as investors continued to digest the U.S. central bank’s new hawkish intensity and the ongoing swirl of economic events stemming increasingly from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Bitcoin is struggling for direction as Wall Street grows cautious over how aggressive the [Federal Reserve] will be with tightening of monetary policy,” Oanda Senior Market Analyst Americas Edward Moya wrote in an email.

SOL and AVAX were recently up about 2% and 3%, respectively after spending parts of Thursday in the red. Terra’s luna (LUNA) was recently down over 4%. The meme coins DOGE and SHIB were both roughly flat. Outside the CoinDesk top 20, CAKE rose over 6% at one point.

Crypto prices veered slightly from the performance of major equity markets, which were in the green, albeit barely. The tech-focused Nasdaq was up less than a tenth of a percentage point.

The U.S. central bank has signaled powerfully as a body, and by individual governors, over the past week that it would ratchet up its efforts to tame inflation, which has reached nearly 8%, a four-decade high.

On Thursday, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard told reporters after a speech that the Fed would have “to move forthrightly in order to get the policy rate up to the right level to deal with inflation that we’ve got in front of us.” His remarks followed two days after Fed Governor Lael Brainard, who had been reluctant to abandon the Fed’s dovish posture of recent years, suggested the Fed might increase interest rates at a faster pace.

Other winds during the day blew more favorably for digital assets. Addressing crypto In a speech for the first time, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that a digital dollar could become a “trusted money comparable to physical cash.”

Speaking to attendees at an American University event, Yellen highlighted the differing perceptions about crypto, saying that’s often the case with “transformative” technology. “Some proponents speak as if the technology is so radically and beneficially transformative that the government should step back completely and let innovation take its course,” she said. “On the other hand, skeptics see limited, if any, value in this technology and associated products and advocate that the government take a much more restrictive approach.”

Meanwhile, European and U.S. lawmakers who have criticized Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine were considering and pushing forward on new economic sanctions. They included a European Union ban on Russian coal and a U.S. House vote to remove Russia’s favored trade status and a halt to imports of energy products.

Still, Oanda’s Moya was cautiously optimistic about bitcoin’s near-term performance.

“Bitcoin has held up nicely given the recent bond market sell-off, but it could struggle if that move continues,” he said. “Bitcoin’s long-term outlook remains bullish but if risk aversion runs wild it could be vulnerable to a drop towards the $38,000 level.”

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