In the past 24 hours, Solana (SOL) has witnessed a robust 18% increase in price, propelling the cryptocurrency to the fourth position in market value for the first time in over two years. With this surge, Solana’s market capitalization has risen to $41.9 billion, overtaking Binance Chain’s BNB which stands at a market value of $41.8 billion. At the time of writing, SOL is trading at $94.20.
Just a day prior to this milestone, on December 21, Solana had surpassed XRP in market value, drawing significant attention. Over the past week, SOL’s price has gained over 30%, outperforming all other major cryptocurrencies within the same period. Despite being dubbed by some as the “ETH killer,” Solana has a long way to go before it can catch up to Ethereum’s market capitalization of $269 billion.
According to CoinMarketCap, the last time Solana was ranked fourth in market value was in November 2021, during the peak of the bull market cycle, when it had a market cap of $75 billion, still behind BNB’s $108 billion market value at the time.
However, Solana’s price took a hit in November 2022 due to its association with the collapsed FTX exchange and former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, closing the year just under $10. A year later, SOL has rebounded to nearly $100, becoming one of the best-performing crypto assets of the year.
Google Trends data indicates a significant increase in searches for Solana, nearly matching those for Ethereum in the United States. This suggests growing interest and awareness of Solana among the public.
Amidst these developments, technical analysts have not shied away from warning about a potential major crash before the end of the year. On December 21, the Solana team looked back at the year during the Solana Solstice celebration, highlighting events such as the Bonk (BONK) craze, the launch of the Saga mobile device, AI integration, and corporate partnerships.
