The bankruptcy court has taken measures to ensure that the liquidation of FTX assets doesn’t burden the cryptocurrency market. It requires asset sales to proceed through weekly investment advisor batches, following established rules.
After experiencing an initial dip that saw SOL drop to its lowest point in two months at $17.34 on September 11th, some bullish signals have emerged. SOL reset support at $20 on September 29th, coinciding with a successful upgrade to version 1.16, leading to a 16% increase in SOL’s price over the past seven days.
SOL’s rally is also supported by the growth in decentralized applications (DApps) and non-fungible token (NFT) activity on the Solana network. SOL is now striving to establish support at $23 and solidify its position as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency (excluding stablecoins) by market capitalization, surpassing ADA.
When analyzing blockchains focused on DApp execution, the number of active users should be a top priority. Therefore, it’s essential to quantify addresses related to smart contracts, representing the number of users.
Note that the consistent increase in activity spans various sectors, including the NFT market, decentralized finance, collectibles, social networks, and gaming. Furthermore, Solana’s active addresses interacting with DApps have exceeded Ethereum’s number during the same period, capping at 55,230.
Solana has gained attention in the NFT market due to its cost-effective and scalable solution, as data is compressed and stored off-chain. This allows for more feasible production with lower minting fees, providing creators broader access to audiences.
In the past seven days, Solana has surpassed Polygon in NFT volume, accumulating $6.8 million in value, according to CryptoSlam. In September, the tables turned as Solana generated total NFT revenue of $23.9 million, while Polygon achieved $31 million in NFT revenue.
The recent 20% price increase in SOL is fueled by the network’s upgrade to version 1.16 on September 28th, introducing a “gating system” to gradually activate new features on the network. This process helps maintain network stability and prevents sudden disruptions caused by abrupt changes.
Another notable change in this update is “secret transfers,” which uses zero-knowledge proofs to encrypt transaction details, enhancing user privacy. The release also includes improvements in RAM usage for validators, adjustable account data sizes, and a data integrity mechanism.
Overall, this update brings improved efficiency, privacy, and security to the Solana blockchain, marking a significant milestone in its development.
Despite Solana’s competition with other blockchain networks, there’s no denying that Ethereum layer 2 solutions have attracted more total value locked (TVL) and network activity. For example, Arbitrum holds $1.73 billion TVL, and Optimism holds another $637 million, both surpassing Solana’s $326 million, according to DeFiLlama.
Even as Solana continues to make strides in privacy, scale, and security, external factors are affecting its ability to break through the $23 resistance level, as predicted.
Ultimately, investors remain primarily focused on the Ethereum ecosystem, as it continues to lead in terms of the number of developers and decentralized applications.