What Is Going on with Solana: Analysis and Prospects
For less than a year, since April 2023, Solana has grown by more than 680%. The reason lies in the boom of meme-coins launched on the Solana blockchain.
Why Solana Is Growing?
Source and Copyright © TradingView
In 2024, Solana experienced significant growth due to the rising interest of market participants in memcoins, which are cryptocurrencies launched on the network. The coin called Dogwifhat ($WIF) gained popularity in February, followed by SLERF ($SLERF) in March. These coins are known for their high volatility, which can result in quick earnings.
Solana’s success and growth faced doubts a year ago. No one could believe that it would strike and rise more than 600% in a year. The reason lies in the fact that Solana was one of the affected victims by the major crypto exchange FTX collapse.
Despite this, decentralized exchanges (DEX) using the Solana blockchain have seen a marked growth in trading volume. Similarly, the volume of assets blocked in DeFi protocols on Solana has experienced a positive trend. Even being congested, the Solana network still broke the record for DEX trading volume, said Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius Labs.
The Solana network is experiencing growth in various metrics, such as the number of active addresses and volume of transfers. Even the network operations have become more expensive due to the overall positive trend of the project.
At the same time, cryptocurrencies based on the Solana network bring more popularity and discussions to the $SOL and the network in general. Let’s research the projects that have brought this boom to the market.
Projects Caused the Solana Growth
dogwifhat ($WIF)
This project is put into the list of the top 5 coins that are going to have explosive growth in 2024. What is dogwifhat?
As it is said on the official website, $WIF is just a “dog wif a hat”. It is funny, how they laugh at serious descriptions of the project. You can note it right on the main page. They strikethrough the officious language and leave the following:
Source and Copyright © dogwifhat website
This is the meme-coin based on Solana. No less, no more. Last year, a new token was launched and it quickly gained popularity, receiving support from major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, Kucoin, and Bybit. Its price recently reached nearly $3.50, and its market capitalization approached $3.5 billion. $WIF also caught the attention of industry leaders like Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, who wore a hat with the WIF logo and predicted that the token's value could rise to $10.
The listing of memecoin on major exchanges such as Binance allowed Dogwifhat to grow significantly. Thus, Dogwifhat quickly became the fourth most capitalized coin in the memecoin sector after Dogecoin ($DOGE), Shiba Inu ($SHIB), and Pepe ($PEPE).
$WIF price has increased by 1216.25% since its launch and is around $2.21. However, despite its early success, $WIF has been negatively impacted by the current market correction and its price has also fallen by 0.96% over the past week.
Source and Copyright © TradingView
SLERF ($SLERF)
Here’s another meme-coin that made Solana blow up the news and market expectations. $SLERF has a sloth theme, and despite the current market downturn, has managed to maintain its value and has even increased in price, reaching $0.8. This is likely due to the excitement surrounding the token and support from HTX.
However, there have been some issues with $SLERF. On March 18, an anonymous developer made a shocking statement on his X account. As a result of the error, he burned LP and tokens set aside for the airdrop. He initially tried to burn the LP using Solana Tools Vercel and it didn't work. Having used another tool, he did not notice how the operation led to the withdrawal of the mining function, leaving investors without the $SLERF tokens they were promised. According to him, this process is irreversible.
People reacted in different ways: some said that it was okay and it was great that he confessed his mistake in a loud, but others, of course, caused him a lot.
As we see, now the price of $SLERF is correcting, and, as we might think, the blow-up may stop at any moment. However, it doesn’t mean that the coin will be abandoned. It’s still at the top list of coins we should pay attention to in 2024.
Today the price of $SLERF is $0,86 with a 24-hour trading volume of $1,443,910,323. $SLERF is down 6,14% in the last 24 hours, but up 22.65% in all time. It has a circulating supply of 499,997,750 SLERF coins and a max. supply of 499,997,751 SLERF coins. $SLERF is currently available on Zedxion Exchange, DigiFinex, Bybit, LBank, and Bitget.
Source and Copyright © TradingView
Solana Price Prediction
Will $SOL rise this year, and gain even more popularity? Let’s look through the Solana price prospects and price predictions.
Source and Copyright © TradingView
There is a lot of optimism within the crypto industry regarding the growth of $SOL. Some experts have predicted that $SOL could reach between $700-1000 by 2024, such as crypto trader ProfessorAstrones. Other members of the community are aiming for Solana to surpass its all-time high value, which could happen within a week. Crypto analyst Ali Martinez gave a bullish prediction for the $SOL igniting a remarkable 70% rally before facing the next sell signal.
However, there are also skeptics within the crypto community who are not so positive about Solana's future. They argue that the network does not often produce useful products, and as a result, many view Solana as a breeding ground for scams, and are not sure why people are so blind.
According to Changelly Crypto Blog's technical analysis, Solana's minimum price in 2024 is expected to be -$0.47, and the maximum price is projected to reach $49.69. The average trading price is expected to be around $99.85. At the same time, 2025 will surprisingly give us almost around $300 for $SOL.
Below you can see the Solana Price prediction from Binance users. As we see it’s almost $240 for $SOL. You should note that the price prediction can change rapidly due to each user's possibility to vote for a price rise/fall.
Source and Copyright © Binance
Coinpedia, a cryptocurrency informational agency, thinks that Solana's coin price is expected to surge in the coming months due to the Bitcoin Halving event in April 2024 and the possibility of an altcoin season. If the upward trend persists, Solana's coin price could end the year on a high note, potentially reaching $500. However, to achieve this, Solana must navigate challenges and address any consensus issues. Otherwise, the altcoin may settle at $90.
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