Why does the official still defend the low price after SKR plummeted 53% and peaked?

Solana Mobile’s native token SKR is officially opening for airdrop claim today at 10:00 UTC+8, but the pre-market price has plummeted over 53% in the past 24 hours, falling from $0.0165 to $0.00769, with a fully diluted valuation of only $76.9 million. This result starkly contrasts with the generally optimistic expectations within the crypto community—previously, the market anticipated SKR’s price to be between $0.02 and $0.04 after launch.

Market Adjustment Behind Unrealized Expectations

From $0.0165 to $0.00769, this decline not only shattered market expectations but also prompted a reevaluation of SKR’s true value.

The Huge Gap Between Expectations and Reality

According to information, community expectations for SKR are based on several factors: Solana Mobile as a hardware innovation within the Solana ecosystem, SKR’s status as a native asset, and the fair distribution mechanism of the airdrop. However, the pre-market trading price is significantly below these expectations.

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Real Reactions from Market Participants

From related information, market reactions to this price are mixed. Crypto analyst 7de9 stated that the pre-market pricing by Whales Market is completely wrong, estimating the minimum market cap should be between $400 million and $600 million. However, such voices have not gained effective support in actual trading, and the market continues to decline.

Why the Officials Are Not Rushing to Rescue the Market

Interestingly, in response to this sharp decline, Toly, co-founder of Solana Labs, expressed a different view on X. This shift in attitude warrants deeper understanding.

An Alternative Interpretation of the Low Price

According to reports, Toly said that if SKR’s price remains at a low level similar to the early CoinList auction phase of Solana, developers can fully enjoy the benefits of early participation. In other words, the official stance is that a low price can be an advantage—it can serve as a natural filter for true long-term believers.

The logic is:

• Low price lowers participation barriers
• Attracts developers and users who genuinely believe in the ecosystem
• Excessively high token prices may attract speculators, ultimately harming the ecosystem

A 10-Year Ecosystem Building Perspective

Toly added that building a truly prosperous ecosystem typically requires a 10-year cycle. This indicates that the officials have abandoned short-term token price speculation and are focusing on long-term ecosystem development. Every time the token price surges rapidly in the short term, concerns arise because maintaining overly high market expectations is difficult.

Fairness in Airdrop Distribution

The scale and method of this SKR distribution are also noteworthy. According to information, nearly 2 billion SKR tokens are being distributed to the community, with about 1.82 billion allocated to 100,908 users and 141 million to 188 developers.

Before TGE, the Solana Mobile team also made final adjustments to anti-sybil measures, identifying and removing some Seeker clusters from claiming eligibility, returning these tokens to the future airdrop pool. The official emphasized that this is to ensure fair distribution, so that tokens ultimately flow to users and developers who truly promote the platform.

This shows that the official prefers to keep the price low while ensuring tokens go to genuine participants.

What’s Next for the Market

Although pre-market prices have fallen to $0.00769, the real test will be the trading performance after official launch. Exchanges like Bybit are already prepared to support perpetual contracts with up to 5x leverage, which could further amplify price volatility.

From the official attitude, their concern over short-term price fluctuations is much lower than their focus on ecosystem health. This attitude is uncommon in the crypto space, but it also demonstrates a genuine commitment to long-termism from the project team.

Summary

The pre-market plunge of SKR indeed broke market expectations, but this may not be a bad thing. The official stance indicates they prioritize long-term ecosystem development over short-term price movements. Low prices help filter true believers, anti-sybil measures ensure fair distribution, all pointing toward a healthier ecosystem foundation.

Of course, this also means investing in SKR requires longer-term psychological preparation—if you expect quick doubling, this might not be the project for you. But if you value Solana’s long-term mobile ecosystem potential, a low entry point could be a reasonable opportunity. The most important follow-up is whether the team can truly promote ecosystem growth and user adoption based on this undervalued foundation.