Investors Turn to Ether Competitors, Solana’s SOL Hits 3-Digits to Mark A New ATH

Solana (SOL) has finally hit three digits to make a new all-time high while the rest of the crypto market is slow to move, with NFTs dominating the limelight and FOMO.

Late on Sunday, SOL surged past $100 to be worth more than $29 billion in market capitalization to become the 8th largest cryptocurrency, trumping USDC and Polkadot (DOT). DOT -2.48% Polkadot / USD DOTUSD $ 6.16
-$0.15-2.48% Volume 206.46 m Change -$0.15 Open $6.16 Circulating 1.17 b Market Cap 7.19 b 1 y Bitcoin and Ether Breaks Trend With Outflows While Altcoins Continue to See Inflows 1 y SBI Holdings to Launch Japan’s First Crypto Fund; Including BTC, ETH, DOT, LINK, LTC, XRP & BCH 1 y Solana Unaffected by Price Jitters while Bitcoin, Ether, Polkadot, and Cardano Post Outflows

As of writing, SOL is trading at $100.71, up 5,222% YTD and nearly 200x from the May 2020 low of $0.5.

Amidst this SOL summer, the Ether competitor started trending on CoinGecko, becoming the 2nd highest trending asset on the crypto data site and also the 2nd most trending asset on the financial communications platform Stocktwits this weekend.

Solana is also the 52nd most held crypto asset on cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.

pic.twitter.com/In29XYH6MW

— John Street Capital (@JohnStCapital) August 28, 2021

In line with the price, the total value locked (TVL) in the Solana ecosystem is also reaching new all-time highs at $3.05 billion, up from just a billion dollars in May.

Other coins in the Solana ecosystem are also enjoying an uptrend. In the past week, APEX, SOLPAD, and RAY rallied between 60% to 100%.

With Etherem’s recent network update in the form of a London upgrade with EIP 1559 done earlier this month, speculators are turning their attention toward rival blockchains and their tokens, said Avi Felman co-portfolio manager at BlockTower Capital, in an interview.

The faster and cheaper alternative to Ethereum, Solana, isn’t the only one pumping right now. Compared to Ether’s 336% YTD gains, Cardano (ADA) is up 1,505% and Avalanche (AVAX) 1,157%. ETH -0.10% Ethereum / USD ETHUSD $ 1,748.40
-$1.75-0.10% Volume 10.21 b Change -$1.75 Open $1,748.40 Circulating 122.37 m Market Cap 213.96 b 1 y Coinbase Predicts Substantial Growth of Newer L1 Chains & Institutionalization of Regulated DeFi 1 y A Possible Crypto Recovery Moving Into New Year, Risk-on Sentiments Send The Stock Market to Another Record High 1 y The Sandbox Game Is Migrating to Ethereum Sidechain Polygon and Launching A DAO in 2022 ADA 0.13% Cardano / USD ADAUSD $ 0.34
$0.000.13% Volume 302.58 m Change $0.00 Open $0.34 Circulating 34.72 b Market Cap 11.79 b 1 y Bitcoin Is Back Above $51k and Ether $4,100 as The Cryptocurrency Market Goes Green 1 y Bitcoin and Ether Breaks Trend With Outflows While Altcoins Continue to See Inflows 1 y Solana (SOL) Bucks the Trend, Along With Tron (TRX), by Recording Highest Inflows After Bitcoin (BTC): Report ADAX 8.17% ADAX / USD ADAXUSD $ 0.01
$0.008.17% Volume 183.91 K Change $0.00 Open $0.01 Circulating 0 Market Cap 0

@solana you guys seem to be making waves. Congratulations. Where can I learn more?

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) August 30, 2021

Besides Solana summer, other coins trending up include Tezos, which jumped 50% in the last 7-days. Fantom, SafeMoon, Horizen, LUNA, and Decentraland are also up 20% to 50%.

Arweave (AR) is also up 50% during this period and 285% in August. This storage solution that offers data permanence among all the centralized and decentralized storage solutions is “the most feasible solution to make decentralised data storage gain wider adoption,” wrote Molly of eGirl Capital, which is invested in the cryptocurrency.

The VC firm’s website post further states that Arweave currently only accounts for 0.1% of the total decentralized storage and only 8% of its market value. However, they believe with its superior technology and design, “there is still a lot of room for Arweave to grow in the future.”