By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 18th, 2024
On Monday, the Solana (SOL) cryptocurrency touched a new all-time high entering the price discovery zone. The total value locked on Solana has increased rapidly with more DeFi protocols making way to the Solana blockchain.
Ethereum-killer and Layer 1 blockchain solution Solana is gaining massive momentum recently. On Monday, October 25, Solana touched an all-time high of $218 with its market cap surging to $65 billion.
Solana and Its New All-Time High
Solana has already displaced XRP as the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Furthermore, it has shown strong consolidation above $200 levels. Also, the major price rally in SOL started since mid-august 2021. Since then, Solana (SOL) has surged nearly 5x or 400% within two months.
This massive price rally in Solana despite the network-facing massive outage that it faced last month in September. Smart contract platform Solana has emerged as a very strong Layer 1 competitor to Ethereum.
If SOL continues with the rally further, we can see it grabbing a spot in the top-five crypto list very soon. This will also be the Ethereum-killer along with Cardano (ADA) challenging the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency. Speaking to CoinDesk, Ashwath Balakrishnan, research associate at crypto research boutique firm Delphi Digital said:
“SOL was a top performer over the last few months … [It’s] only natural for it to perform well during the next leg of the bull cycle. Crypto runs on memetics … So what performs well during uptrends is what everyone is looking to buy.”
Getting Stronghold in DeFi
Solana is also gaining major popularity in the rapidly emerging decentralized finance (DeFi) market. Several DeFi protocols that facilitate P2P borrowing, trading, and lending have grown off late.
As per data on DeFiLlama, over $13.9 billion worth of assets have been locked in the Solana DeFi protocol. The total value locked (TVL) on any Layer 1 blockchain represents the value of crypto committed to Defi protocols.
Furthermore, data from CoinGeckco shows that Solana (SOL) remains the one of the most-traded tokens currently on centralized exchanges. The majority of the trades have been happening on popular exchanges like Coinbase and Binance. In its market report last week, Delphi Digital wrote:
“When bitcoin momentum slows down, layer 1 tokens often perform better than any category,. Layer 1s have been the best-performing tokens since the June bottom – and quite frankly, they boast the highest year-to-date returns, too.”
Solana (SOL) has quickly climbed the ranks to make way to the top ten crypto list. Will Solana make a space in the top-five crypto spot anytime soon? Let’s know your thoughts.