A significant development has occurred in the crypto market as Solana has overtaken Ethereum in Google search interest for the first time in 2023. This surge in popularity is not only reflective of Solana’s price increase but also of the substantial developments within the Solana ecosystem.
While Ethereum had maintained a clear lead over Solana in search interest throughout the year, the data shifted in the week of December 17 to December 23, with Solana scoring 56 points against Ethereum’s 50 in search interest. According to Google Trends, the term ‘Solana’ could reach a peak interest score of 100 from December 24 to December 30, indicating the highest popularity for the term.
The data also revealed that Solana generated more search interest than Ethereum in countries like Spain and the Philippines. However, Ethereum continues to attract attention from investors in Indonesia, Taiwan, Morocco, and many other countries.
The increased interest in Solana is also evident from search terms related to the ecosystem, such as ‘bonk’ and ‘tensor.’ ‘Bonk’ is a dog-themed memecoin project on the Solana platform that surpassed Pepecoin in market value after a 370% monthly gain on December 8. Meanwhile, ‘Tensor’ is known as a Solana-based NFT marketplace that developed the NFT collection Tensorians, which has seen significant gains in the last 30 days.
The growing interest in the blockchain ecosystem may have contributed to the recent price surge of Solana’s SOL token. On December 20, SOL’s market value overtook XRP, and the token’s price saw a 13.8% increase, reaching over $82 for the first time since May 2022, leaving XRP behind.
On December 22, SOL surpassed BNB in market value, becoming the fourth-largest crypto token. However, SOL experienced a price drop due to selling pressure before Christmas, and BNB reclaimed its position on December 29.