According to CoinGecko, Solana (SOL) has taken center stage as the leading blockchain of the year, attracting nearly half of the attention of global cryptocurrency investors in chain-specific narratives.
This dominance is fueled by SOL ‘s return to its 2021 highs, bolstered by the strong performance of key projects such as Pyth, and mem coins such as Dogwifhat (WIF).
WIF, introduced during a surge of enthusiasm for meme coins on SOL, sailed on the wave of interest generated by successes such as BONK. This strategic timing, combined with bullish market sentiment, has ensured WIF’s recent popularity.
CoinGecko statistics released on Wednesday further showed that Ethereum lagged behind Solana with a 12.73% share of global traffic, while BNB Chain also ranked behind Solana with a 5.38% share.
Institutional investors focus on second-largest altcoin
According to CoinShares , Solana is the second largest altcoin in terms of assets held in funds, second only to Ethereum. This indicates significant demand from institutional investors and whales.
As the market continues to grow, the trend is expected to strengthen, especially in light of Bitcoin ‘s anticipated halving and potential interest rate cuts, which could fuel a prolonged bull market.
In addition, Solana has seen significant growth in recent months. It has also become a favorite platform for meme coins and NFTs.
Progress in the Solana development ecosystem
Neeraj Khandelwal, co-founder of CoinDCX, said that the Solana developer ecosystem has seen significant progress in many aspects in 2023.
This includes a wider range of programming languages, better tools, improved developer experience and better quality content. There are currently more than 2,500 active developers in the ecosystem, contributing to open source repositories every month.
Second, while waiting for the bull market, investor activity has increased significantly. Khandelwal said: “Solana saw a significant increase, and decentralized exchanges(DEX) saw a remarkable increase in trading volume.”
“In addition, investors invested significant amounts of SOL in staking contracts, exceeding a total value of $42 billion.”
Predictions of $250
Solana was trading at around $208 at the beginning of the week, marking the first rise above $200 in the past two years. It is worth noting that the price of the coin has risen by seventy-five percent since the beginning of the year and by more than seven hundred percent over the past twelve months.
Experts predict that Solana’s price will rise to $250 this year, given its momentum and strong fundamentals.
