Solana Soars 12% Overnight as Crypto Market Recoups $43 Billion

Solana (SOL) has surged past $25 in the early hours on Friday, hitting a three-month high of $26.84 and returning to levels not seen since July.

At press time, SOL is up 12% over the past 24 hours, and as much as 26% over the last week, according to data provided by CoinGecko.

The move has squashed bears in their tracks, too, with data from CoinGlass showing more than $6.2 million in short positions liquidated overnight.

Billed as an "Ethereum killer," Solana is a proof-of-stake blockchain network atop which developers can spin up various decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFT) projects.

Solana’s meteoric rise comes amid a broader crypto market surge, which saw the total market capitalization of all digital assets soaring 4.3% over the day and adding $43.3 billion.

Elsewhere in the markets, XRP has posted a 8.4% increase in price on the day, currently trading at $0.51.

The token was helped along likely due to the SEC dropping charges against Ripple's CEO Brad Garlinghouse and the firm's executive chairman Chris Larsen. The two were, along with Ripple, for allegedly violating securities laws by selling the XRP token.

Bitcoin is also up nearly 5% on the day, bringing the asset to just under $30,000.

The bullish move comes amid continued amendments to various Bitcoin ETF filings and additional calls by industry talking heads that the market will soon see a filing approved.

Ethereum (ETH) didn't miss out on the rally either, rising 4% overnight and changing hands at $1,615.

Solana recovering from FTX collapse

Solana, currently the industry’s 8th largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of almost $11 billion, was one of the hardest hit by last year’s FTX collapse, with its SOL token falling by more than 41% a week after the crypto exchange’s bankruptcy.

By the end of 2022, SOL had plummeted below $10—the token’s lowest point since February 2021—and has been on the rise since then, albeit with inevitable drawdowns due to the overall mixed state of the crypto markets throughout this year.

Examining DeFi activity, despite Solana’s total value locked (TVL) reaching earlier this month a new high above $338 million, it’s still a far cry from the almost $10 billion seen in November 2022.

Edited by Liam Kelly.