The price of Solana at the beginning of August was in the range of $31-33, but it reached $139.5 by September 3. The token has surged about 450 per cent during the month.
Following an over 70 per cent rally in the last one week, Solana has overtaken Dogecoin to become the seventh largest cryptocurrency in market capitalisation. Analysts said the strong inflows from institutional investors as well as its rapid adoption as a non-fungible token (NFT) platform led to this rally.
Solana was launched in April 2020 and in just 18 month, it has rallied over 18,000 per cent. An investment of just Rs 1,000 in Solana at that time would have become Rs 1.81 lakh today.
It is one of the most promising Blockchain ecosystems after Ethereum, said Edul Patel, CEO & Co-founder of Mudrex. “Solana has witnessed a massive rally because of its wide-scale adoption. It is a powerful layer-1 blockchain that has some cutting-edge technological advancements over many of its peers,” he added.
The crypto is rapidly gaining popularity because of swift transactions at a super-efficient price. Solana can do up to a million transactions for under $10, whereas Ethereum and Bitcoin cost more than $7-8 per transaction. Also, its development team is proactively undertaking initiatives to enhance the ecosystem. It is backed by some influential investors, driving its enormous research and development projects, said the experts.
Vikram Subburaj, Co-founder and CEO, Giottus Cryptocurrency Exchange, said Solana claims to have solved most of the issues that Ethereum and Cardano have faced. “While Ethereum, the number two cryptocurrency and the first blockchain to offer smart contracts, is popular, it has issues with scalability, with respect to transaction times and fees,” he added. “Cardano, the number three cryptocurrency by market cap, is yet to launch smart contracts, though it is better in terms of transaction scalability.”
Some crypto enthusiasts consider Solana as a game changer in blockchain technology. Many experts argue that Solana may even dethrone Ethereum.
“Solana is based on a consensus mechanism called the proof of history. It is way ahead of Ethereum’s current mechanism,” said Patel. “Solana is highly energy-efficient and pretty cheap. All these are the fundamental ingredients that helped in scaling its adoption.”
Solana is basking in the glory as crypto experts are anticipating the successful future of this token with great promise and potential.
Sathvik Vishwanath, CEO & Co-founder, Unocoin, said Solana is seen as the new-age solution for the challenges of cryptos like Etherium. “The community not only supports the new technology but even develops applications on top of it.”
Solana has massive growth potential, said Patel, who expects the price to hit $250 in the next year. Its high transaction speed and low costs have attracted several developers to build projects on the Solana blockchain, he added.
However, Subburaj says growth beyond the current levels is not certain. Solana’s market cap is a little over $40 billion, which is less than one-tenth of Ethereum and less than half of Cardano.
“Ethereum is moving towards a proof-of-stake protocol similar to Cardano and is expected to solve most of the issues it faces,” he added. “It may be a short-term jitter but in the long run, all three blockchains can coexist and grow together.”
