The year in Solana: a comeback story

In a comeback story for the ages, Solana burst into the spotlight this year from the depths of the 2022 crypto winter, becoming one of the most used blockchains for crypto enthusiasts and retail newbies alike.

“Chewing glass is in our DNA, together we will get through it.” Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko posted on Twitter (aka X) during the winter of 2022.

Two years later, amid growing risk appetite and meme coin mania, Solana has witnessed explosive user growth in 2024.

The blockchain is poised to turn old narratives about its frequent glitches and technical inferiorities upside down, with looming technology unlocks like software client Firedancer just around the corner.

With the price of its native token – SOL – rising by almost 200% over the past year, Solana now ranks fifth in terms of market capitalization, thanks to improved regulatory clarity and ETF speculation Solana enthusiasts are hoping for even more in the near future.

First, let’s look back at Solana’s year in 2024.

Solana recovers the base and breaks an all-time high

After trading at just $8 following the FTX collapse in late 2022, Solana has staged an extraordinary comeback, gaining over 275% this year and briefly hitting a new high. highest ever.

Dismissed by some as a victim of the crypto winter, Solana’s resurgence shows the resilience of its ecosystem, which co-founded competing Layer-1 systems. EthereumVitalik Buterine, once applauded.

Data collected by Syncracy over the past year shows this Solana has surpassed Ethereumthe second largest crypto asset, in key metrics such as real economic value, active addresses and decentralized exchange volume, despite its market capitalization remaining a fraction of Ethereum’s.

Although the price has returned 17% from its November 23 all-time high of $263, the likelihood of Solana ETFs is increasing, potentially positioning the network’s native token for greater adoption through traditional financial media.

Meme coin super cycle?

Meme coinstokens known for their ties to internet memes and pop culture events enjoyed an unprecedented surge on Solana in 2024, riding a wave of cultural relevance and rampant speculation.

While meme coins are not a new phenomenon, iconic tokens like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) are now the top 15 tokens by market cap and darlings from the previous cycle. The massive proliferation of new tokens on Solana led to what some called the “meme coin super cycle.”

The catalyst of the cycle? Platforms such as Pumping funa meme coin launch pad that democratized token creation, allowing any user to create a new token with just a few clicks.

This accessibility allowed for the creation of more than 4 million tokens since the platform’s launch in January 2024.

While most now have no value, some have prompted traders to rise significantly profits and have become notable enough to trade among the top 100 coins by market capitalization.

The Solana saga

The Solana Saga, Solana’s first smartphone, was initially launched to dampen enthusiasm among diehard members of the Solana community, but saw a resurgence in late 2023.

A last-minute frenzy ensued as users clamored for airdrops tied to the phone’s soulbound token, eventually causing the Saga to sell out.

Building on that momentum, Solana introduced a second edition, the Seekerin 2024. Seeker offers phone buyers a cheaper alternative to the Saga, but with improved hardware.

The Seeker, which will be released in the first quarter of 2025, has already registered more than 140,000 pre-orders and more than $65 million worth of devices.

Solana’s real-world connections go beyond smartphones and extend to portable gaming devices and a range of decentralized infrastructure projects (DePIN).

These projects seek to reinvent real-world infrastructure using decentralized networks and blockchain technology, a potential revolutionary shift according to some proponents.

Take for example Helium, a decentralized mobile network, and Teleport, a ride-sharing platform using Solana’s technology, have seen significant growth in 2024. Helium’s Mobile token (MOBILE) is up over 300% this year, boosting momentum in the sector.

Technical improvements are coming

Solana’s technical backbone faltered at times blockchain suffered from downtime issues and failures in the past. However, infrastructure improvements are fast approaching, especially with the release of Solana Firedancer.

Firedancer, led by crypto investment firm and infrastructure developer Jump Crypto, was the highlight of Solana’s recent Breakpoint conference in Singapore.

The innovative validator client is designed to optimize hardware usage and eliminate software inefficiencies, paving the way for improving Solana’s network performance.

An early prototype of Firedancer – Freakdancer – went live on Solana’s mainnet in September. So far, no outages have been reported in that time, one said uptime page.

Institutions think Solana has grown up

Active crypto participants have flocked to Solana this year, but global institutions are also lurking VanEck. Just a year after Visa detailed analysis Due to Solana’s scalability, low cost structure, and suitability for payments, other financial giants have joined the Solana ecosystem.

PayPal made headlines in early 2024 by enabling its PYUSD stablecoin on Solana, underscoring the blockchain’s potential as a backbone for digital payments and highlighting that PYUSD has been unlocked on Solana “significant benefits for commercial use cases.”

Major financial players aim to bring the blockchain’s native token into the same mainstream investment channels, while Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to provide broader access to mainstream financial participants.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair