Solana has surpassed Bitcoin in growth since the beginning of the year and is second only to the regular cryptocurrency market leaders in terms of cryptocurrency market share

The rate of native blockchain token Solana (SOL) on March 18 reached its highest since December 2021, momentarily reaching $209+ on the Binance exchange when paired with the Tether USD (USDT) stablecoin.

The capitalization of SOL, according to CoinMarketCap, reached an all-time high of $89.4 billion. And that made the token the fourth largest crypto asset after bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and the USDT stablecoin. SOL’s previous capitalization high was $77.9 billion in November 2021.

Solana’s price has risen more than 100% since the beginning of the year. But the token is trading below its all-time high at $250, reached in November 2021 during the peak of the crypto market.

New Solana Records

On March 18, the SOL token overtook the BNB cryptocurrency from the Binance exchange in terms of capitalization, which had long been ranked fourth in the Coinmarketcap rankings.

Search queries for the word “Solana” reached the index of 100. And that is an absolute record in the five-year history of the cryptocurrency. The previous peak was recorded in early September 2021 – then the value of search activity was 84. Experts attribute the surge of interest in Solana to the SOL price exceeding the $200 mark.

Benjamin Stani, director of business development at Matrixport analytical company, linked the growth of SOL price to active trading of memcoins issued on the Solana blockchain.

Over the weekend, Solana surpassed Ethereum in trading volume due to increased interest in Solana-based memcoins. Trading volume on SOL reached $3.52 billion on March 16, according to data from DefiLlama. And that’s $1.1 billion more than the daily trading volume on Ethereum. However, the increase in activity has taken a toll on the network.

Our experts predict the coin to update the historic high, provided the rally in the cryptocurrency market continues. And expansion of the Solana blockchain application ecosystem.

ChatGPT bot plugin compatible with Solana network is open source and can be downloaded from GitHub

Solana Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to maintaining and developing the Solana blockchain. The company announced the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into it using the ChatGPT plugin developed at Solana Labs.

The project’s reputation suffered as a result of the collapse of FTX. Because the bankrupt exchange owned a large number of SOL native tokens. It also launched a decentralized exchange, Serum, on the Solana network. But the blockchain was able to survive its partner’s bankruptcy. According to CoinMarketCap, as of May 24, the Solana (SOL) native blockchain token ranks 11th in market capitalization ($7.7 billion) among all cryptocurrencies.

The new ChatGPT plugin is available for download from GitHub. It will help users simplify their understanding of Solana’s data and protocols. As well as get information about the network infrastructure and DeFi projects working in it. The plugin can be used to find and buy NFTs. And also token translation, transaction validation and other network activities.

The AI will make Solana more user-friendly, Yakovenko said. He noted that every developer should now think about how their programs will integrate with the AI. That’s because it’s a new paradigm for working with computers.

The Solana Foundation also said it has increased its grant program for AI projects from $1 million to $10 million. According to the developers, the foundation has already received 50 applications. In addition, the organization has launched a three-month experimentation program in blockchain and AI for university students.

Our experts note that Sol is not the first cryptoproject to introduce AI. In early March, Binance launched NFT generator Bicasso. The test version of the service issued 10,000 tokens in the first two and a half hours of operation.

Solana developers managed to get rid of associations with bankrupt FTX and Alameda. Our experts talk about the prospects of blockchain and its SOL token

The Solana eco systemic connection to the collapsed FTX exchange and the Alameda Research fund took a huge knock on its reputation. This is despite negative assessments from the community. As well as the departure of a number of projects to other blockchains and a decrease in the price of SOL token, the protocol itself managed to hold up. And new services are increasingly allowing to rid it of unwanted associations. The Solana network remains technically innovative. And it has seen an increase in activity, both in the number of developers participating in projects. Also by the amount of funds in the turnover of existing decentralized financial protocols.

The consolidation of the Solana community has made it possible to create a replacement for those ecosystem entities in which FTX or Alameda previously played a prominent role. For example, the decentralized exchange OpenBook succeeded Serum, a key liquidity provider for the ecosystem. Losing more than 96% of its value in 2022, the network’s native token Solana (SOL). Once again, judging by its capitalization growth, it looks attractive to investors.

Increasing liquidity in Solana

Record low transaction fees on the Solana network. This is one of the key factors contributing to its attractiveness for developers of DeFi- and NFT-platforms. As well as the expansion of these spheres in the cryptoindustry as a whole. In the case of Ethereum, even when using network scaling solutions such as Arbitrum or Optimism. Then almost any network interaction scenario will cost a few dollars per transaction. Which in itself is uncomfortable for the mass user and, as a result, slows down the spread of the technology.

It is possible to work comfortably with Solana platforms even at the lowest available liquidity, which is about $10 or less. Low network fees also matter for games and social networking applications. Which can run on the main Solana network without the need for any add-ons. Similar decentralized applications for Ethereum on Layer 2 blockchains are creating additional networks that meet the necessary requirements, such as Arbitrum’s Nova.

In February, the developers of the Helium Network protocol, with a market capitalization of more than $180 million, planned to move it to the Solana network at the end of March. But they later pushed it back to April, citing unpreparedness in the community. The postponement of the expected date had a negative impact on the price of the project’s native token (HNT), which plummeted more than 21% in the moment. However, if Helium’s transition to Solana does happen soon. The ecosystem will see an impressive influx of new liquidity. As well as additional activity from new community members.

The second significant recent event for the Solana ecosystem is the Grizzlython hackathon, the organizers of which have recently finished accepting applications. The contest has attracted 800 new projects, with up to $5 million in development funding. The success of even a small number of projects in this hackathon could lead to the emergence of innovative infrastructure products in the Solana ecosystem.

Price of SOL token

Despite the generally optimistic fundamental analysis. The technical indicators of the SOL price do not look bullish. The price of the coin failed several times to pass the resistance and consolidate above the level of $25. The asset is trading inside a symmetrical triangle pattern. And the next move could start with a rapid spurt after the price breaks above or below the triangle.

The closest level of support, which has stopped the price fall in 2023 more than once, is the $20 mark. More conservative and less risky purchases are possible at the next support level of $15-16. The lowest point from which we can predict an upward price movement in case of a new bear market or ecosystem problem. It could be the support level of $10, which on the daily timeframe also coincides with another indicator, Doji candle. Which indicates a change in the trend of the coin on January 1, 2023.

The situation on the chart of token in pair with BTC looks worse than in pair with dollar. The price has been in a distinct trend decline since January 15. For this chart the range of 0.00072-0.00073 BTC may be considered as a resistance area. The key area of purchases in case of a bearish scenario will be the range of 0.00064-0.00054 BTC. This also coincides with the value of the Doji candle indicator of the daily timeframe of January 1.

Weaknesses of Solana

A significant disadvantage of Solana is the excessive centralization of nodes for the sake of speed and network stoppages that have occurred in the past. Situations where developers shut down an entire blockchain are isolated and anomalous. Solana has had such cases more than once.

So far, no consensus has been reached on the way Bitcoin is represented on the Solana blockchain. Already, more than ten technically suitable tokens are competing for user liquidity. The previously used soBTC has been found to be out of business. And its exchange rate has long since decoupled from the Bitcoin price and is around the $1,000 per token mark. As a result, Solana’s financial protocols are almost completely devoid of liquidity pools paired with the main asset and flagship of the crypto sector. Even if the situation changes, the issue of the reliability of using BTC in Solana protocols will remain open.

Our experts note that competing blockchains with unique characteristics also continue to expand in the cryptosphere. The fast-growing Aptos, Sui and other blockchains could potentially replace Solana in the crypto market. Which use different programming languages from Solidity and similarly give users record-low fees and speed.

Even experienced investors sometimes find it hard to know which of the many young crypto projects is worth investing in. Our experts explain what kind of returns startup coins can bring. What is IDO and where their liquidity collections take place.

Raising capital for companies from a wide range of investors is a critical mechanism for creting new businesses in today’s economy. Crypto assets market is no exception and has its own formats similar to IPO model.

Almost everyone who has encountered cryptocurrencies knows what an ICO is and what happened to this market in 2018. In fact, ICO market is dead after the 2018 bubble, subsequently SEC severely restricted them. Statistics say that about 90% of all ICO ended up failing.

But having gone through a crypto winter, crypto market did not get rid of the natural need for liquidity inflows to nascent projects, which is where the new era of IDO and launchpad started.

To participate in IDO of a project, you will need, as in case of IPO, to get an allocation to buy tokens at a low price before their release on exchange. This is where the main investor profit is hidden. Launchpad already has quite a few – more than 70 platforms. As of today, almost $1 billion has been raised through them. And the average increase in investment was X25. It looks very good for investors, but there are big risks hidden here as well.

Analysis of IDO profits on several major launchpads

We decided to check some of major launchpads (Polkastarter and DAO Maker). And analyze their data based on Cryptorank data. Despite popularity of these platforms, we can immediately notice that each of them individually does not raise hundreds of millions of dollars. On average by platform, each project raises about $261,000. The average profitability on 2 platforms was 5%. In fact, this is the yield since the listing of project. In this material, we provide figures as of early June. When bitcoin was trading above $30,000 and cryptocurrency market was not at bottom as it is today.

Our Crypto-Upvotes experts decided to take a detailed study of one of most popular launch pads – Polkastarter.

The largest number of projects that raised funds on Polkastarter belong to the DeFi category. A total of 38 DeFi projects were placed on the platform. Of these, only 21% did not fall below listing price at end of day. Also of note are the indicators related to token price at historical highs (ATH). Indeed, if you held any new token placed on Polkastarter DeFi for an average of 21 days. You could hope for yields as high as 4,900%. But given the “survival rate” of projects, that would be a veritable casino with no chance of a fundamental prediction.

Most optimal IDO segment on Polkastarter turned out to be the projects serving the blockchain infrastructure. They showed lower returns on almost all metrics. However, with a more limited sample of 11 projects, 27% of projects traded above listing price as of early June, which is the best result across all segments of this platform.

Conclusion

It’s been 4 years since ICO bubble burst, 2 of which turned out to be very “depressing” for the crypto industry. On average, on the 2 largest launchpads, 73% of all projects today are trading below listing price. Thus, participating in project offerings on launchpads for long-term investors seems like a bad idea. Launchpads can be seen as part of a risky portfolio and sell project tokens for a very short period of time after they go to exchange. You should also be extremely careful when buying new project tokens. Once a project has been launched, you have little time to make a decision to sell. You run risks ending up with a token belonging to the same 73% of projects that are now selling below launch price.

Solana released a Web 3.0 phone named “Saga” to appeal to a growing number of mobile phone users accessing digital assets.

Solana Labs has unveiled the “Saga” smartphone based on the Android operating system. “Saga” is a customized version of OSOM smartphone with built-in cryptocurrency wallet features. It will come pre-installed with Solana Mobile Stack. SMS a toolkit that allows you to create decentralized applications for mobile phones.

And so we found out that this smartphone will allow you to store digital assets and NFTs, sign transactions, and pay for purchases through Solana Pay. But it won’t just be a mobile phone. This device will support Solana-based apps and will have its own dapp Store. Solana Labs has said it intends to develop Saga ecosystem with partners like NFT marketplace Magic Eden, DeFi-platform Orca and wallet Phantom.

Also according to Solana website, this device features a 6.67-inch OLED display, 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage space. The smartphone is based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset.

Also SMS toolkit supports the Seed Vault secure storage protocol for private keys. This latter puts them in a special enclave, separated from the wallet, applications and operating system. Solana Labs explained that SMS provides developers with a set of libraries and APIs that allow them to create decentralized mobile applications for Android devices. Solana Mobile Stack is already available for download on GitHub.

Want to buy this smartphone now? It is possible and our Crypto-Upvotes team found out how to do it.

“Saga” is expected to go on sale in early 2023 at a price of $1,000. Our experts found out that it is already possible to place a pre-order for 100 USDC – this amount will be deducted from the full price of smartphone, it is also already known will first be released in USA, Canada, EU and UK markets. So with an estimated price of $1,000. Saga mobile phone will compete with flagship models from Apple, Samsung and other mobile phone companies. With a strong ecosystem of software developers who can develop alternative Web 3.0 applications.