New Delhi, India: The increased demand for Ethereum has triggered a boom in Solana, its main competitor, which has had a remarkable year.
Solana, dubbed the “Ethereum Killer” by many analysts and professionals, has increased in value by more than 17,500% in 2021, making it the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Solana now has a market cap of nearly $75 billion, surpassing the largest stablecoin Tether, which has a market cap of just over $72.5 billion, because to its secular surge.
Solana has risen from a low of $1.5 at the start of the year to a high of $258. In just over ten months, a $1,000 investment would have grown to Rs 1.75 lakh thanks to the digital token.
The digital currency, which was launched in April 2020, has grown by about 35,000 percent from its inception, when price was $0.75. Since May 2021, it has increased by nearly 750 percent. According to Ishan Arora, Partner, Tykhe Block Ventures, the quick surge was prompted by Solana’s rapid growth and its investors and backers, which include a few billionaires. “It’s a quick blockchain with a lot of projects on it.” Ethereum and Solana are frequently compared since they both support smart contracts. In addition, Solana is speedier and more efficient than its big relative. Smart contracts, which are a collection of scripts that carry out a set of instructions on the blockchain, are used by decentralised finance (DeFi) apps and non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.
“As a cost-effective and scalable alternative to Ethereum, Solana can handle 50,000 transactions per second,” said Sharat Chandra, a Blockchain & Emerging Tech Evangelist. “It is now the industry standard for DeFi and NFT applications. As a result of increased developer activity, prices in Solana will continue to grow.”
Solana, according to market experts, has the potential to dethrone Ethereum in the long run. “Solana’s development community should be able to grow. It should be able to entice more developers to use the network to create decentralised applications. We’ll have to wait and see if Solana can dethrone Ethereum in the long run “According to a CoinSwitch Kuber spokesman.