Solana (SOL) Pulls Over A 100x in 2021, Rising to the Top to Fight Ethereum

The star of the cryptocurrency market right now is Ethereum competitor, Solana, which has been printing green candles for eight consecutive weeks. What has been even more interesting was this week’s price action, which yet again showed the resilience of SOL and how much people are eager to own this crypto asset. On Tuesday, the day of the flash crash, SOL went on to hit a new all-time high at roughly $195, only to fall to $134 a few hours later on cryptocurrency exchange FTX. This crash was reversed instantly as SOL went back to its ATH. The very next day, the crypto asset made a new peak at $216 and, as of writing, is trading just under $182. At the beginning of this year, SOL was worth a mere $1.5 and so far is one of the biggest gainers in the crypto market, whose returns are already over 100x YTD. https://twitter.com/MikeTyson/status/1435974498906349569 With a market cap of $54.16 billion, Solana is the 6th largest cryptocurrency aiming to take the place of BNB, whose market cap is $64.5 billion, then Tether (USDT) at $69.7 bln, and in 3rd place is Cardano (ADA) with a market cap of $80.6 bln. Given the market expectations and price prediction for SOL, which are running as high as $500 per SOL by year-end, it will be very easy for the crypto asset to achieve that. “Solana’s growth runs appear to be mimicking that of Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Coin (BNB), and the $500 projection may turn out to be a conservative one for the coin,” Greg Waisman, co-founder, and COO of Mercuryo, said in an interview. As for its biggest competitor Ethereum, it is the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin with a market cap of roughly $412 bln with its token ETH trading at $3,400. Many who missed the ETH boat see SOL as an opportunity to make it big the same way ETH was seen for those who missed Bitcoin (BTC). https://twitter.com/0xbunnygirl/status/1435885034217607173 The fact that Solana is a faster and cheaper version of Ethereum, which is of great value given that the latter struggles with extremely high fees, which further skyrockets during high activity ending up pricing out smaller users, it can attract a much bigger crowd which it has already started with NFTs. “Solana has a growing ecosystem, projects are being built on it, and it’s benefited hugely from the mania that’s taking place in NFTs,” said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder at crypto lender Nexo. Ethereum is actually congested yet again, costing $10 to do a simple ETH transfer, but at the same time, fees are high because more people are using the network than it can handle. While L2s offer a solution with Arbitrum recently opening for the public, as Delphi Digital noted, “they’re just starting to get off the ground.” Meanwhile, growth can also be seen in the total value locked in Solana, which has surged to $8.74 bln from less than $1 bln two months back, but of course, it is nowhere near Ethereum’s over $152 bln. https://twitter.com/SolanaMBS/status/1435683004261801989 If this is not enough, Solana has the backing of FTX CEO Sam Banman-Fried, who is leading the crypto scene in 2021 through rapidly growing crypto exchange FTX, quant trading firm Alameda Research, marketing efforts, and charity works. “It’s becoming too big to ignore and offers a different smart contract solution to Ethereum,” Jonathan Cheesman, head of over-the-counter and institutional sales at FTX, told Bloomberg. Besides Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, Solana also has the backing of venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz along with Polychain Capital and CoinShares. “Major players in the space, such as FTX and Jump, are recognising its potential,” said Alexandra Clark, sales trader at UK-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock. “Not only that, but the network’s foray into NFTs with Solanart, the marketplace built on the SOL blockchain, has been instrumental in driving the altcoin’s price higher,” she said. [coin_ticker symbol="SOL"] [coin_ticker symbol="ETH"]