Many projects aiming to offer an alternative to Ethereum came out in the last 5 years, but just a few of them managed to offer strong enough technology and developed infrastructure. One of the projects that are seriously considered by the community members as Ethereum’s rival is Solana. Thanks to its permissionless nature and the possibility to create dApps easily that it offers it got much adoption in the last 2 years. Despite the good reviews of critics and market experts, SOL, the native token on the network didn’t perform very well last year, as it was affected by the overall downtrend of the crypto market. Read our Solana Price Prediction to know more.
Solana Price Prediction: Where Will Solana Be in 5 Years?
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Table of Contents
Solana Fundamental Analysis
Solana is a high-performance blockchain network, designed to be scalable – able to handle a large number of transactions and contracts. The project was built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. The Solana network was developed as a simpler, more user-friendly alternative to existing blockchain platforms. It was created with the aim to allow businesses to focus on their core competencies rather than having to learn complex blockchain technologies. By simplifying the user experience and providing better functionality, Solana hopes to make it easier for businesses to adopt blockchain.
The project team started the development in 2017, but Solana’s mainnet was officially launched only in 2020. The headquarters of Solana is located in Geneva, Switzerland.
The software platform consists of a blockchain management system, a decentralization engine, and a content management system. The blockchain management system is used to create and manage the distributed ledger, while the decentralized engine provides the framework to enable inter-connected decentralized applications. The content management system is used to maintain the data and information within the dApps through an automated system.
The Solana network is designed to allow developers to create and run their dApps on the blockchain. To achieve this, the network supports a wide range of tools and technologies, such as Ethereum, Hyperledger, and the Interplanetary File System (IPFS).
Solana has more than 20 partners that are using it to develop decentralized applications, including the world’s biggest names in different industries. Some of these partners include Cisco Systems, IBM, and Microsoft. Solana has a number of partnership plans and collaborations in the pipeline, including an upcoming agreement with the largest electricity provider in Europe.
Solana works as a network for decentralized applications. The ecosystem includes three components that support each other.
- Application platform: It is a suite of APIs and developer tools that are used to develop and integrate dApps on the Solana network.
- Data marketplace: This marketplace is used to find and sell data to other nodes. It allows nodes to buy and sell data in a trustless and reliable environment.
- Networking protocol: The networking protocol is the tool that allows nodes to communicate, determine who is the leader, and participate in consensus.
The network utilizes the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. The architecture combines many existing technologies to drive interoperability and collaboration. Solana offers its native application form represented as a suite of APIs and developer tools used to create and integrate dApps on the Solana network.
The Solana partnership with Microsoft is a significant achievement for the project. The Microsoft Azure Blockchain Suite is a collection of tools and services that help businesses create and manage blockchain networks.
SOL is the native token of the Solana network. It is a utility token that enables its use in the Solana ecosystem. The token is used to pay for transaction fees, to incentivize Mappers (the people who run the Solana blockchain), and to secure the platform through staking. SOL has a total supply of 100 million with almost 63 million tokens in the current circulation.
SOL tokens can be traded for fiat currencies and other digital assets. A profit-sharing mechanism is built into the SOL reward mechanism to encourage blockchain development. The profit-sharing mechanism uses a concept known as Proof-of-Capacity to reward users for contributing computing power to the network. It makes SOL tokens more valuable by distributing tokens based on the users’ capacity to process transactions and earn rewards on the network.
SOL token was initially sold via an open crowd-sale. The soft cap was $12 million and the hard cap was $66 million. The minimum contribution was set to 0.00000001 ETH and the maximum contribution was set to 0.08 ETH. The token sale ended on November 27, 2017.
Solana Live Price Chart
SOL has been in a continuous downtrend ever since the end of November 2021. At the beginning of December, the price jumped up to $233 for a very short while and then went even more down, dipping to $155 on December 14. After that, a short period of recovery followed and by December 27 the SOL token price managed to reach $197, but the next day the situation changed and the asset established a new downtrend.
During January the Solana token price chart exhibited a rangebound behavior. This can be seen by the small range of prices that the token experienced, with no large swings or spikes. It was traded between $79 and $100. This trend was mirrored by the Solana price chart trend indicator, which showed that the token was moving between the $0.02 and $0.045 range.
The price continued to decline until the end of March. By that time to swap SOL users had to pay around $78. At the end of March-beginning of April, the crypto market was showing signals of the upcoming trend flip. But after the token reached $132, the highest price level since January, the bull season was over. From April 5 the price started to go down, reaching $99 by April 14. For the next 20 days, the token continued following the downtrend but kept the support level around $100.
After May 10 when the crypto market experienced a massive fall in the token prices, SOL lost more than 50% of its value and was traded for $49, but continued to decline, until the massive token sell-off at the beginning of June. However, that didn’t affect the SOL token as much, just making the token price dip to $28 for a couple of days.
By the end of June, the token gained some value, reaching $42, and maintained the same price level till the middle of August when the price dropped more. By the end of August, the SOL token reached $31 and kept this price level until the beginning of November., Only on November 6 did the price jumps up a little bit, reaching $36 and then collapsing. On November 11 the SOL token price was just $13.99, then it recovered to $17 just for a day, and decreased to $12. The SOL price chart stayed the same until November 24. According to market experts, the possibility of SOL going down is higher than establishing a proper uptrend in the nearby future.