SOL, the native coin on the Solana blockchain, is currently trading at US $22.94 ($36.43 AUD) according to data from CoinMarketCap. The current price marks an increase of more than 20% week-on-week.
And, notably, Solana has left its rivals in the dust. SOL flipped Dogecoin and Cardano’s ADA, ranking seventh by market capitalisation, with a total market value in circulating supply of US $9.46 billion ($15 billion).
Why is SOL Surging?
One reason for SOL’s remarkable performance may be its previous underperformance and issues that affected Solana, suppressing price. This includes its close ties with FTX, where Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, had invested in Solana and supported it on the FTX website. Following the FTX collapse, SOL also incurred substantial losses.
Additionally, Solana has suffered frequent network outages in the past, but the blockchain seems to be running relatively stable recently.
Related: Live SOL to AUD price
FTX Sell-Off Spooked the Market
More recently, concerns arose when FTX was granted permission to sell digital assets worth US $3.4 billion ($5.4 billion), with a significant portion consisting of SOL. However, only US $9.2 million ($14.6 million) worth of SOL can be unlocked each month out of the total US $1.16 billion ($1.84 billion) in SOL, as a substantial amount is currently locked with Alameda and other FTX entities. Although this may have initially prompted some SOL sales, most market participants may have been reassured that the impact would be minimal.
Increasing User Interest and Adoption
In early September, Visa announced its integration with Solana to facilitate faster payments using the stablecoin USDC via the Solana blockchain. While Visa anticipates multiple blockchain networks in the payment ecosystem, it said Solana stands out due to its speed, scalability, and low transaction costs.
Solana has demonstrated significant throughput, averaging 400 user-generated transactions per second (TPS) and surging to over 2,000 TPS during peak demand, outperforming Ethereum’s 12 TPS and Bitcoin’s 7 TPS.
Additionally, LunarCrush shows social engagement around Solana has increased by 157% in just one month. However, despite these bullish signals, Solana had some setbacks in the DeFi sector. BASE, the layer-2 network on Ethereum by Coinbase, recently surpassed Solana in total value locked (TVL), as data from DeFi Lama shows.
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