Solana (SOL) soared more than 600% throughout the end of 2023. After breaking the major resistance level, the coin is poised to test the $130 level in 2024. SOL has been undervalued for over a year and could rise much higher in 2024.
Solana shows impressive performance despite a downturn in the last week of 2023. The coin has surged from around $105 to $117 over the past 24 hours as bullish momentum continues to build, according to data from Coingecko.
With its price surging more than 600% throughout 2023, Solana has been one of the best cryptocurrency gainers of the year, along with Bonk ($BONK), Injective ($INJ), Kaspa ($KAS), and Render ($RNDR), per CryptoCrunchApp. Bonk, a memecoin project, is also based on the Solana blockchain.
SOL takes the top spot in 2023.
Solana has surpassed Binance Coin to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency and currently has a market capitalization of over $48 billion. This strong performance and the possible emergence of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) could potentially boost market sentiment this year.
Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, and Patrick Bush, senior investment analyst, predicted in a December report that Solana could surpass Ethereum in 2024 due to its total value locked (TVL) dominance in the DeFi ecosystem. According to data from DefiLlama, TVL on the Solana blockchain has grown significantly, surpassing $1.4 billion in 2023.
However, there is still a long way to go to the November 2021 peak of $10 billion. Likewise, management expected Solana’s spot ETF to follow ETFs of Bitcoin and Ethereum this year.
In 2021, VanEck launched the Solana exchange-traded note (ETN), a debt collateral traded on Germany’s leading stock exchange, Deutsche Börse. The move highlights VanEck’s positive view of Solana’s long-term prospects. The launch of a spot Solana ETF this year could simplify access to SOL and the broader Solana token ecosystem for mainstream investors.
What to Expect in 2024
After the FTX incident in 2022, Solana was in turmoil due to its involvement with FTX’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. SOL plummeted after the incident, falling below $10. Thanks to the continued efforts of the developer community, blockchain has turned the situation around.
Austin Federa, Director of Strategy at Solana Foundation, said:
“The collapse of FTX was a huge blow to the entire industry, but where the network is today is entirely due to the resilience and capabilities of Solana’s global community of builders. The Solana community got back to work and built through bears, and a year later we are seeing the culmination of that determination and hard work.”
Solana continues to impress as one of the fastest blockchains, rivaling the best payment platforms, recently achieving an average of 3,500 transactions per second (TPS). In theory, Solana’s capacity could reach 50,000 to 65,000 TPS. This far exceeds Ethereum’s average TPS of 10-13, despite Ethereum being a much larger smart contract platform.
Solana also has significantly lower transaction fees than Ethereum. These network advantages are particularly attractive for decentralized applications (dApps) in a variety of sectors, including finance, gaming, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
2024 is expected to be an important year for the Solana ecosystem. One of the major events is the launch of Firedancer to increase Solana’s scalability. It’s already a great blockchain, but it’s likely to improve in 2024.
Firedancer is the next-generation independent validator client for the Solana blockchain. This launch will help Solana process over 1 million transactions per second and strengthen Solana’s network. As more people transition to blockchain, SOL makes a lot of sense.
Firedancer is still in development, but it has already generated interest in the blockchain world. The successful testnet launch in October 2023 marks an important milestone, and the mainnet launch is targeted for Q1 2024. If he lives up to his promise, Firedancer could play a pivotal role in taking Solana to greater heights in the future.