Solana's Ecosystem Outpaces Competitors, According to Binance Report
Date: 2023-12-08 Author: Dima Zakharov Categories: CRYPTO PAYMENTS
Binance analysts have recently released a report shedding light on the evolving landscape of the cryptocurrency market. The report reveals an impressive 110% increase in overall market capitalization since the beginning of the year and a 55% surge in the current quarter. Moreover, they noted the conclusion of an eight-month-long downward trend in NFT trading volumes, with a staggering 200% increase in November. Bitcoin emerged as the most popular blockchain, surpassing its main rival, Ethereum, by $27 million in trading volume. Ethereum also exhibited weaker performance compared to alternative Layer 1 (L1) protocols for smart contracts, with Solana's network experiencing significant growth.
The Binance Research Report
In addition to Ethereum being the dominant L1 platform for smart contracts, several projects have outperformed it in terms of profitability this year, with Solana being the most prominent among them. In November alone, the market capitalization of Solana's native token, SOL, increased by 56%.
Solana faced considerable challenges due to the bankruptcy of FTX in November of the previous year, as FTX was the project's largest investor. Despite this setback, developers continued to release new products and improvements, rekindling optimism around the project.
For instance, in 2022, the Solana network experienced at least three significant outages, while this year, only one similar incident was recorded. The situation is expected to improve with the release of an independent validator client named Firedancer.
The Total Value Locked (TVL) in decentralized finance projects based on Solana also saw substantial growth, outpacing major competitors by 57% in just one month. Much of this growth was driven by airdrops from ecosystem projects such as Pyth Network, Jupiter Exchange's exchange aggregator, and Jito Network's liquid staking protocol. MarginFi and Kamino Finance projects have also announced the launch of reward programs.
Previously, analysts from the investment company VanEck predicted in their pre-New Year report that Solana would become the third-largest blockchain by market capitalization. As of December 8th, at 16:50 MSK, SOL holds the sixth position in the rankings and is trading on Binance at $73.35, marking a 15% increase within 24 hours.
