Solana's SOL Jumps 44% in August as Inflation-and-Burn Governance Vote Nears Cutoff

SOL extended its August rally, rising more than 8% over the past 24 hours and gaining about 44% month-to-date, lifting the token back above $105, CoinDesk reported. The move ranks among SOL's strongest monthly performances since 2024 and comes as Solana heads into the final stretch of its first binding onchain governance vote, with traders adjusting expectations for future token supply. Voting is set to close at the end of epoch 1023, around 15:30 UTC today. The new governance framework lets validators and their delegators cast stake-weighted, binding votes. Three items are on the ballot: SGP0001 (confirm the Solana Charter), SGP0002 (speed up the decline in inflation), and SGP0003 (revise transaction fees and increase token burns). Markets are focused on the two economic proposals. On inflation, SIMD550, put forward by engineers at infrastructure firm Helius, would double Solana's annual deflation rate from 15% to 30%. The change would bring SOL's inflation rate to its long-term floor of 1.5% by 2029 instead of 2032. CoinDesk's calculations suggest roughly 18.9 million new SOL would be issued over the next six years under the proposal, reinforcing expectations for tighter supply. A faster issuance slowdown would also reduce staking returns: estimates cited in the report indicate annual staking yields could fall from about 5.25% to around 2.25% within three years, pressuring margins for some smaller validators. On burns, SIMD553, proposed by Solana development company Temporal, would increase SOL destroyed via a restructuring of transaction fees. Under the plan, part of the fee would continue to go to validators, while another portion would be assessed based on compute used and burned directly. If approved, daily burns could rise from roughly 650 SOL to as much as 9,000 SOL, depending on network activity—about a 12x to 14x jump. The report said the change has already cleared code review by the Anza and Firedancer client teams; the vote is about activation rather than technical feasibility. Nasdaq-listed crypto treasury firm Solana Company (HSDT) backs the governance charter but opposes the two token-economics changes, citing timing rather than the direction of the initiatives. Management said yield predictability is currently more important for institutional stakers than accelerating issuance compression. SGP0002 and SGP0003 will be decided in separate votes, each requiring more than two-thirds of staked voting weight; one proposal failing would not determine the outcome of the other. CoinDesk noted that markets appear to have priced in a tighter supply path. SOL's 14-day RSI has approached 84.5, pointing to strong short-term momentum. Results are expected within hours after the epoch ends.