Solana is an open source project based in Geneva, and founded in 2017, that implements a new, permissionless, high-performance blockchain. The brains behind the project, Anatoly Yakovenko, Greg Fitzgerald, and Stephen Akridge, initially called the project Loom, but decided to rebrand it to Solana as a nod to their years living and surfing in the small beach town of the same name just north of San Diego.
In June of this year, Solana Labs announced the completion of a private token sale of $314,159,265 from a number of prominent investors including Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, and CoinShares. The funds are intended to help boost decentralized developments and decentralized finance developments built on the Solana network, which caused the crypto press to pit Solana against Ethereum, calling it’s new funding the “Ethereum-Killer”.
Solana’s native cryptocurrency, known as SOL, has climbed to the 7th position on the World’s Top 10 Largest Virtual Coins, nudging Dogecoin aside, and further solidifying the notion that the blockchain could be a long-term rival to Ethereum.
In only 3 weeks the SOL token has tripled in value and now has a market cap of more than $45 billion. It’s low-cost transactions and unmatched speed are to credit for this, areas where Ethereum is known to dominate. The token soared by 50% in seven days, amidst other cryptos struggling to show positive returns.
Solana declares to be the world’s fastest blockchain, and the fastest growing crypto ecosystem with over 400 projects in action, including DeFi, Web3, and NFTs to name a mere few. The average cost per transaction is $0.00025.
The co-founder of crypto lending company Nexo wrote in an email that “Solana has a growing ecosystem, projects are being built on it and it’s benefited hugely from the mania that’s taking place in NFTs,” and that the support of Sam Bankman–Fried, Chief Executive of the FTX crypto exchange is helping.
Alexandra Clark, a sales trader at the UK based digital asset broker company, GlobalBlock, said, “Major players in the space, such as FTX and Jump, are recognizing its potential. Not only that, but the network’s foray into NFTs with Solanart, the marketplace built on the SOL blockchain, has been instrumental in driving the altcoin’s price higher,” she continued, and that “SOL’s current price rally is likely to continue.”
On the topic of Solana’s success, Head of Institutional Sales at FTX, Jonathan Cheesman wrote “It’s becoming too big to ignore and offers a different smart contract solution to Ethereum.”
Towards the end of August, Pyth Network went live on Solana’s mainnet, and there are further plans for it to soon be able to broadcast market data through what is called the Wormhole Network.
In recent weeks, altcoins like Solana’s SOL, Cardano’s ADA, and Bincance Coin’s BNB, have surged, taking centre stage amongst top cryptos like Bitcoin and Ether. On the other hand of this, Bitcoin prices have decreased from $52,000, to $42,000 per coin causing crypto users to sell their Bitcoin off for other cryptos.
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