Solana surged past $100 on Saturday afternoon for the first time in 20 months, since April 2022, continuing an upswing that has catapulted SOL to a 770% gain over this time last year.
SOL is up 6% on the day, per data from CoinGecko, jumping to a current price of nearly $103 after hovering below the $100 mark the last couple days. The cryptocurrency flipped XRP on Wednesday to become the fifth-largest coin by market cap, and then flipped Binance Coin (BNB) late Thursday to land in the #4 slot.
As of this writing, Solana has a $44 billion market cap. This past week, weekly transaction volume for decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on the Solana blockchain eclipsed that of exchanges on rival Ethereum for the first time, propelled in part by a rise in popular meme coins like BONK and Dogwifhat (WIF) on Solana.
Other Solana-based tokens have seen substantial gains in recent weeks, even if they're down in recent days. BONK, for example, surged to an all-time high of $0.00003416 on December 15. It's down nearly 45% since then, showcasing the famous volatility of meme coins, yet remains up 347% over the past month.
Meme Coin Mania Helps Push Solana DeFi Volume Over Ethereum for First Time
After accelerating for weeks, momentum in the Solana ecosystem has finally accomplished the improbable: Transaction volume for decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on the blockchain has finally eclipsed that of exchanges on rival Ethereum, at least in the last week. DEX volume on Solana has soared to $9.03 billion over the last seven days, according to data from Defi Llama. In that same period, decentralized exchanges on Ethereum have seen $8.836 billion worth of transactions. That victory may end up...
WIF, meanwhile, is up 294% this week alone, even though it has plunged almost 28% from Friday's all-time high price. Crypto-powered wireless network Helium's HNT token has marked a 217% gain over the past 30 days, while the network's MOBILE token is up 1,316% this month following the Helium Mobile service's nationwide expansion.
Solana is the biggest gainer over the past 24 hours in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, and its 37% rise over the past days makes it a standout within the top 100 as well. Other hot coins this week include Ethereum scaling network Optimism's OP token (up 49%) and Near Protocol's NEAR token (up 47%).
Solana Devs Got a BONK Airdrop Worth $300 in 2022—It's Now Worth $1.3 Million
Pragmatic investors may scoff at volatile meme coins, but when they take off, they make fools of us all—at least until they crash. But lately, Solana meme coin BONK has been pretty much up only, blasting off to new heights—now up 200% in the last two weeks as SOL itself approaches its own all-time high mark. And anyone who was airdropped a stack of free BONK soon after the token's 2022 launch might be sitting pretty right about now. BONK has repeatedly pushed to higher all-time marks over the la...
By comparison, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap—Bitcoin and Ethereum—have each posted a roughly 3% gain in the past seven days.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
