- Solana saw the third-highest institutional investor inflows last week and surpassed Ethereum in month-to-date inflows.
- The network has also recorded nearly $500M in secondary NFT sales in just 3 months.
Last week’s statistics from CoinShares placed Solana (SOL) as the third leading cryptocurrency in terms of institutional inflow, with $14.7 million.
Ethereum (ETH), which was second-best after Bitcoin, saw a $1.9 million gap between it and Solana. Additionally, SOL’s month-to-date inflows of about $36.4 million surpass those of ETH, which saw outflows worth $0.7 million. These figures from CoinShares indicate a shift in the investor spotlight from Ethereum to Solana in October.
The Solana blockchain is also setting trends as it thrives on the non-fungible token (NFT) and decentralized finance (DeFi) boom. Since the start of August, Solana-based secondary NFT sales have reached almost $500 million in volume, according to CryptoSlam. The Degenerate Ape Academy was the network’s top seller with $105.9 million in secondary sales since its mid-August launch.
Solana coming up fast in DeFi and NFTs
Additionally, September marked the network’s record NFT sale month, with a total of $189.4 million. Nonetheless, Ethereum still enjoys the first-mover advantage in NFTs, topping the same month with $2.2 billion in secondary sales. CryptoSlam ranks Solana the fourth-best NFT blockchain per a $1.9 million 24-hour sales volume. Leading the pack are Ethereum ($37.7M), Ronin ($23.5M), and Wax ($4.5M).
But as Messari research analyst notes, even though “Ethereum still dwarfs Solana in total NFT secondary volumes,” the latter has risen to the ranks of “top NFT blockchains in secondary trading in mere months.”
While Solana displays promising metrics in unique addresses (buyers and sellers) and a lower avg NFT sale price, Ethereum still dwarfs Solana in total NFT secondary volumes.
Still, Solana has become one of the top NFT blockchains by secondary trading in mere months. pic.twitter.com/9HfOp7IRut
— Mason Nystrom (@masonnystrom) November 2, 2021
Developers, NFT enthusiasts, and investors have been pulled to Solana as it posts lesser fees than the more congested Ethereum. The network also has a speed of 50,000 transactions per second (TPS) since it integrates timestamps into its proof-of-history consensus model. In comparison, Ethereum has between 15-45 TPS, but it plans to improve with the coming of ETH 2.0. That said, Ethereum still reigns supreme with over 3,000 dApps compared to Solana’s 350.
SOL price developments
At press time, SOL was trading at a new all-time high of $229.76, 13.1 percent up in the day according to our data. The crypto asset has also seen 32.7 percent gains in the past month. It has also grown by 13,300 percent since the start of the year when it traded at just $1.51. Solana’s market cap is now $70 billion, making it the fifth-largest cryptocurrency ahead of fellow ‘ETH killer’ Cardano, which has a $63.1 billion market cap.
According to analysts from FXStreet, SOL’s movements in the past two months place it at a possible 88 percent upswing to $407. This target can only be attained if the $216 mark becomes a support level for Solana. In some cases, the asset might even rise to $430.
Differently, CoinTelegraph Markets Pro predicts a $250 year-end price, citing “on-chain data from the DeFi sector and the derivatives market” as key indicators for the prediction.
