Ethereum Alternative Solana Almost Doubles In a Week, Flips XRP

Smart contract platform Solana’s SOL token continued its relentless surge higher in the market today, as it flipped XRP for the spot as the 6^th most valuable cryptoasset. 

The latest gain comes after Tuesday’s market selloff left SOL nearly unscathed, while the competing Ethereum platform’s ETH token remains down more than 10% from before the crash.

At 10:48 UTC, SOL was up by a whopping 31% over the past 24 hours, trading at USD 210. The price was further up by almost 90% in a week and over 440% for the past 30 days, by far outperforming smart contract competitors Cardano (ADA) and ETH, which rose by 74% and 10%, respectively, over the same period.

SOL price chart:

Following the “flipping” of XRP, the next coin on the market capitalization rankings, binance coin (BNB) (with a market capitalization of USD 63bn), now seems within reach for Solana (USD 61bn) in the short-term. BNB has itself seen huge growth (1,718% in a year), as smart contracts and DeFi services have embraced the Binance Smart Chain.

And while SOL’s price has grown, total value locked (TVL) in dollar terms on the platform has also risen exponentially through August and September, moving from USD 1.22bn on August 1 to USD 7.99bn as of today, data from tracking site Defi Llama shows. 

The sharp rise of Solana has caught the attention of many of the crypto community’s leading figures, with speculations arising that Ethereum – although still much larger by market capitalization (USD 411bn) – may not be able to maintain its dominant position indefinitely. Among the most commonly cited reasons for this is Ethereum’s high fees, which continue to plague the network. 

Everyday the fees and what not are so ridiculous, it loses a tiny bit of its network effect to solana

— LowKeyLurkin (@LeverageOn) September 9, 2021

Some crypto community members appeared to be surprised by just how strong the growth has been in recent days, especially in light of Tuesday’s sharp selloff in the crypto market: 

“Quite a run it had and still has! I was also surprised at how well it held up against the flash crash yesterday,” wrote a Reddit user, while another added “Flash crash? Hell no says Solana.”

Meanwhile, Google search data, a proxy sometimes used to gauge interest in various cryptoassets, showed that search traffic for Solana has caught up with, and on occasions even overtaken, searches for the much larger smart contract platform Ethereum.

The price growth for SOL in September comes after Solana in late August announced its new hackathon series dubbed “Ignition,” with USD 5m in prizes for developers across the DeFi, Web3, Gaming, and Art/Collectibles niches.
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More reactions:

https://www.twitter.com/mikerogero/status/1435858408503009282

Competition is always net positive. Congratulations to all. At BNB camp, we are at intermittent fasting.. lol.

— Doctalk (@DoctalkVoice) September 9, 2021

what's a SOL maximalist gonna be like next year? walk around in bicycle shorts and pretend to be running fast like Sonic or Goku?

— Tim Swanson (@ofnumbers) September 9, 2021

If SOL takes over ETH it is going to be hard for ETH to take over BTC as sound money

Imagine then that there will be ”SOL sound money” folks to replace them

Jeez, what a drag

— Eric Wall | BIP-420😺 (@ercwl) September 8, 2021

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Learn more: 
– ETH Decouples from BTC with Use Cases & Competition in Focus 
– Solana Rallies On USD 314M Investment News

– Solana Founder On Critical DeFi Challenges and How To Fix Them

– Ethereum Needs to Try Harder To Keep Its Dominance in a Multichain Future 
– Ethereum Developers On Why They Don’t See Cardano & Binance Chain As Rivals