During the week, the crypto market experienced a crash that wiped billions of dollars. This has led to fears that Bitcoin and other altcoins could lose the gains of 2021. However, Solana not only came out of it unscathed but soared to a new record high.
Solana’s SOL token soared to a new record high, peaking at $214.96, according to CoinMarketCap.
The price surge has seen Solana outshine Dogecoin and Ripple (XRP) to become the sixth most valuable cryptocurrency globally.
“The majority of the crypto market slid with BTC, demonstrating the relative immaturity of the asset class and the market’s dependency on bitcoin,” said Alexandra Clark of GlobalBlock. “But Solana remained largely unaffected and instead have seen double-digit returns.”
Solana Price Sept 2020-2021
Source: CoinMarketCap
Solana’s underlying technology is what allows it to buck the market trend. Additionally, its backers hope Solana could soon rival Ethereum and Cardano.
Solana’s developers insist it is “the fastest blockchain in the world.” And “censorship-resistant,” with the ability to support smart contracts, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other platforms in the rapidly emerging space of decentralized finance.
Currently, over 400 projects are operating on Solana’s ecosystem. Moreover, SOL cryptocurrency experiences almost 1000 transactions per second.
One such project is Aldrin, a crypto exchange that combines both centralized and decentralized finance.
“Crypto will accelerate what will be the biggest social impact change of our lifetimes,” said Hisham Khan, who launched Aldrin.
“Ethereum has influenced a wave of putting power back into the hands of people, but so far has been too expensive and too exclusive, simply mirroring the wealth gap we see in traditional finance. Solana is lowering the barriers of entry and furthering the mass adoption of the decentralization movement.”
Despite the comparisons with its competitor Ethereum, which has the highest market cap after Bitcoin, it is something Solana’s developers have chosen to avoid.
Anatolu Yakovenko’s Comment
“I hate the Eth-killer thing,” Solana Labs co-founder and CEO Anatoly Yakovenko said during a developer conference earlier this month. “I’m an open-source developer.
“The big misconception that people have about open source projects is that it’s possible to kill them. There’s no way to kill Ethereum. That’s basically not something we think about.”
Above the existing platforms, traders and investors have a huge interest in crypto tokens associated with them.
Price chats have facilitated comparison, and none have outdone Sol in performance.
At 12,000% price surge since January, it has surpassed the gains of Bitcoin (63%) and Ada (1,360%)
Source: CoinMarketCap
Yet, rather than price charts and Ethereum comparison, Yakovenko has an objective of building a network that not only rivals but can beat the tired infrastructure of traditional finance.
“Literally the goal of Solana is to carry transactions as fast as news travels around the world – so speed of light through fibre. Who we’re competing with is Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange,” He said.
“We are 100 per cent focused on making sure these order books that are running on [Solana’s decentralised exchange] Serum can be competitive with not Ethereum, but with the New York Stock Exchange, with NASDAQ, with the biggest retail exchanges with equities. If we can accomplish that, as a decentralized open source project… I think that’s a very interesting outcome. It’s worth trying.”