- Solana has emerged as the top pick for market experts to dominate the crypto market in the next crypto bull run.
- The altcoin has demonstrated its strength in speed, performance and a dedicated development team and resilient community to be its driving force.
After a turbulent start to the year catalyzed by the collapse of the FTX exchange which had close ties to Solana (SOL), the project has slowly but surely regained its footing and emerged as a top contender in the next crypto bull run. Since the turn of the year, SOL has gained around 96 percent.
One of the major contributors to the gains enjoyed by SOL is its disassociation with FTX. The collapsed FTX exchange had heavily invested in the altcoin and its CEO Sam Bankman-Fried had backed the project. After its collapse, many speculated that Solana would also collapse but after short-term losses fuelled by FUD, the altcoin began rebuilding and has this year cemented its independence from the exchange. However, FTX still holds more than $1 billion in SOL tokens and after getting approval to liquidate these, investors are still wary of short-term dips.
Read More: FTX’s $1 Billion SOL Sell-off: Is Solana Safe from Price Drops?
Recent data has further shown that Solana has experienced 100 percent uptime in the last 6 months and only suffered one outage in 2023. In comparison, there were 11 major, and 3 minor, outages in 2022. Solana was notorious for outages which led to network interruptions. This marked it as unreliable for developers, users, and consequently investors. The latest data proves that there have been sufficient updates making it robust against all potential scaling issues.
Solana has experienced 100% uptime in the last 6 months. pic.twitter.com/A4eRldDSkl
— Step Data Insights (@StepDataInsight) August 21, 2023
Solana has further emerged in 2023 as a major player in the DeFi space. Solana is the fifth-biggest layer-one blockchain in terms of total value locked (TVL), behind only Ethereum, Tron, BNB Chain, and Avalanche. At the time of press, Solana has a little over $300 million in TVL. This demonstrates the trust in the platform by crypto investors. As CNF reported last month, in addition to TVL, its transaction fee and network revenue recorded a surge.
Throughout the year the cryptocurrency has also been enjoying institutional investment. Solana has been viewed as a favorite cryptocurrency for institutional investors. As of last month, Solana had recorded about $25 million worth of inflows, which is more than LTC, SOL, TRX, and ADA combined. The presence of institutional investors is a positive sign that will serve as a major boost in the long term.
Can Solana (SOL) Reach $1,000 in the Next Crypto Bull Run?
Market experts have been making bullish predictions for Solana. Ex-Goldman Sachs executive Raoul Pal says that Solana (SOL) is one of his top altcoins. In addition to all the positive developments around the network, the expert has further highlighted the recent announcement that Visa will introduce settlement of the USDC stablecoin over the Solana network. Commenting on the development, the analyst noted, “So, why is Visa using Solana? Because it’s fast. It’s fast, and it does a good job.”
Earlier in the year, Bank of America (BoA) stated that it expects Solana to be the “Visa of crypto.” Looking at Solana’s transaction speeds, the BoA was confident that the network could lead the payments market going ahead.
Read More: Bank of America expects Solana to become the ‘Visa of crypto’
At the time of press, SOL is exchanging for around $20 after trading sideways for the last couple of weeks. Almost two years ago, SOL reached its all-time high of $260, a height that investors remain optimistic about reaching in the next bull run. Given all the developments from the last couple of months, not only is this achievable but it can easily be surpassed to mark a new all-time high to a possible $1,000 mark.
