Investors have been patiently waiting for another bull cycle and 2023 looks quite promising in this sense. One of the leading places in the lists of potentially profitable altcoins is invariably Solana (SOL).Perhaps an swap ETH to SOL isn’t such a bad idea.
What is the Solana Project?
Solana is no longer an absolute newcomer to the crypto market. The development of the project began in 2017, and the launch of the network took place in the spring of 2020. For some time, the coin occupied the 42nd place in the ranking of the largest cryptocurrencies, relatively modest, but quite worthy for a new project. The finest hour of the asset has come in 2021. In the autumn of the same year, Solana triumphantly burst into the TOP-10 largest cryptocurrencies and quite steadily holds high positions, displacing Cardano and Polkadot.
Features
To date, the Solana blockchain is one of the leaders in terms of transaction processing speed. Among its strengths, it is worth mentioning its high resistance to censorship and increased security. Blockchain uses a hybrid consensus mechanism, in which the already well-known Proof-of-Stake is supplemented by Proof-of-History. It is Proof-of-History that ensures the high speed and efficiency of the network, which uses the power of blockchain technology to provide effective DeFi solutions.
Solana does everything that Ethereum does, but much faster. In addition to high performance with scalability, the Solana network boasts low fees and this is a big advantage over its main competitor.
The security of the network is provided by more than 2300 nodes and objectively, it is more decentralized than Stellar or Ripple. Of course, to run a Solana node, you will need to invest in hardware, which costs between 3-4 thousand dollars. However, compared to other networks, this is not so much. In terms of the combination of technical characteristics, Solana has good prospects and over time can become one of the best blockchain platforms. Since Solana specializes in DeFi, the project was quickly listed as a potential Ethereum killer.
It is important that Solana has a developed active community, but the NFT boom was the most powerful catalyst for the explosive growth of the native network token. The most famous and popular NFT collection on Solana is the Degenerate Ape Academy. NFTs created on Solana are traded on the OpenSea platform and some other marketplaces.
SOL price
The native token of the SOL network began to rise against the backdrop of a general market upturn in February 2021. During the summer decline, SOL fell in price, but not as much as compared to the market leaders. The fall of 2021 was marked by a series of historical highs and the coin became one of the leaders in terms of growth rates. However, rapid growth revealed previously unobvious technical imperfections of the young platform. This alerted investors and the beginning of the market correction became a serious test for the coin. By the end of 2021, it has fallen in price by almost a third from its high of about $260 per coin.
The market decline continued into 2022. And for SOL, it was no less impressive than the growth – the coin lost about 90% of its value and traded at a price below $10 for some time.
The first months of 2023 gave hope for a change in the bearish trend, but analysts’ opinions on the dynamics of the SOL price vary greatly. Wallet Investor and TradinigBeasts are pessimistic and believe that Solana’s bearish trend will continue in the next few years. The conclusions of Gov Capital and DigitalCoinPrice are diametrically opposed, they predict a price increase to $47 and above.
Predicting the future market behavior of cryptocurrencies is very false. On the one hand, Solana has a good technical potential, on the other hand, the project has many serious competitors. And no one promises that everything will be easy and fast. Therefore, before making financial decisions, be sure to conduct your own market research, taking into account your goals, capabilities and risk tolerance.
