solana - Pwim.Net

Defying Gravity: Why XEM, CRO, and SOL Price are Trending Up Amid Market Downturn

The global cryptocurrency market is currently being dominated by bears, who have plunged the prices of the majority of the digital assets down. With Bitcoin losing as much as 11.14% in the past 24 hours to exchange hands at $49,722.08 according to CoinMarketCap, a host of other altcoins have trailed the trend. The Bitcoin drop is fueled by comments from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, saying the coin is extremely inefficient.

Per percentage gains, Ethereum (ETH) has shed as much as 15.01% to $1,587.46, Binance Coin (BNB) is down 15.01% to $1,587.46, and XRP has eroded the gains accrued on Monday, dropping over 14% to $0.5210. The decentralized finance tokens Chainlink (LINK), Polkadot (DOT), and Aave (AAVE) also lead losses for the sector with 15.83%, 9.02%, and 21.47% respectively.

As the majority of cryptocurrency falls in to a bear market, NEM (XEM), Crypto.com Coin (CRO), and Solana (SOL) are relentlessly defying the downward gravity, with appreciable price gains. Here is a brief overview of why these coins are resilient amidst an encompassing market dip.

Why XEM, CRO, and SOL are Up Today

NEM, the acronym for New Economy Movement, an ecosystem of platforms that use blockchain and cryptography to provide solutions for businesses and individuals and with XEM as the native cryptocurrency. The network recently conducted crucial testing of its network, reporting absolutely no hitches. This result is perhaps responsible for driving the price of the network token XEM by 17.31% to $0.6804.

Crypto.com Coin (CRO) has benefitted from a recently conducted token burn by the wallet service provider. The platform announced it will be burning as much as 70 billion of its token within the next weeks, the largest ever initiated by the platform. The decision to burn the tokens is ahead of the mainnet launch scheduled for next month.

The Crypto.com community has responded to the update with a serious buyup of the coin, a move that kept CRO as the highest gainer amongst the top 100 ranked cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. At the time of writing, the coin is up 31.43% in the past 24 hours to $0.1778.

Solana (SOL) is also up by over 23% today, showing a rare resilience when DeFi tokens are remarkably showing a strong correlation with Bitcoin. The Solana ecosystem seems spiked up with the news that SushiSwap may be migrating to its network, away from the Ethereum blockchain.

Is a Retracement in View?

Unless the current trend is a signal for a long-term bear season, the ongoing dip in the market may be as short-lived as those that have preceded it this year. Either way, all eyes are on Bitcoin to herald the switch to winning ways in the next couple of hours, or at most, days.

Solana (SOL) Surges by 230% on a Year-to-Date Basis to Hit a New High

Solana was founded in 2017 as a completely open-source public blockchain, designed to provide decentralize finance (DeFi) solutions in a scalable manner.

Solana’s total transactions exceed 15 billion. Solana is capable of more than 1,000 transactions per second (TPS), which is about 60 times the current Ethereum network is capable of processing – about 15 TPS, according to data from Blockchair and Solana Beach.

The average block generation time of Solana is about 751 ms with a lower average transaction fee of $0.000005, which can handle transactions in most current scenarios, especially transactions in the DeFi field. With the rapid outbreak of the DeFi market, Solana, which has faster transaction speed and lower fees, has been favoured by many Defi users and institutional investors.

BKEX Global will list Solana (SOL) and the SOL/USDT aggregate trading pair at 15:00 UTC time, April 21, 2021.

The arrival of institutional investors has also contributed to the soaring price of Solana. Companies including Alameda Research, 3 Commas Capital, Raydium, One Block, and other companies have invested a total of $2 million to build the Step platform, allowing users to visualize, analyze, aggregate, and execute all transactions in Solana contracts.

Step Finance, the Solana ecological dashboard and asset management platform, has previously released an Alpha version. It will launch STEP tokens on the Solana network on April 24, 2021.

Solana (SOL) Price Analysis

Source: SOL/USD Daily via TradingView

Although the entire virtual currency market is in a downturn at the moment, Solana still maintains its own strong upward trend. Today, it broke through the previous high of $36.01 and once again set a new all-time high of $37.10.

So far, SOL’s rate of return is very impressive, rising by more than 230% from $1.52 to $36.34 since the beginning of 2021. At the time of writing, SOL/USD is trading at $36.34.

Although prices fell at the beginning of April, Solana has regained its upward momentum. SOL’s price has been particularly bullish, with the altcoin breaking through the previous consolidation phase.

The transaction price of SOL/USD is much higher than the Exponential Moving Average ribbon. Both the upward sloping moving average and the bullish MACD index indicate that the bulls are currently dominating the market.

The stochastic Relative Strength Index reversed its direction towards the overbought zone, which suggests that SOL may open a faster upward channel. In the case of overall market weakness, Solana’s innovative high is likely to attract a large number of short-term speculators looking to earn a swing income. When Solana hits a new high, this will indicate that the altcoin will not encounter strong selling pressure on its way up.

It is very likely that Solana breaks through $45 in the short term.

Solana and ROK Capital launched a $20 Million Fund to Promote the Ecosystem Expansion in South Korea

The Solana Foundation cooperated with ROK Capital, a large-scale blockchain accelerator in South Korea, to jointly launch a $20 million fund to expand Solana’s blockchain ecosystem in South Korea.

Solana was founded in 2017 as a completely open-source public blockchain designed to provide decentralised finance (DeFi) solutions in a scalable manner.

The cooperation with Korean companies will help Solana expand its local influence. Some projects have received funding, including Mercurial Finance, Synthetify, Symmetry, and Parrot.

South Korea is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency markets, and its cryptocurrency penetration rate is very high. According to statistics, a study shows 23.6% of South Korean college students are investing in cryptocurrencies.

Therefore, the fund believes that choosing South Korea as a base will effectively raise awareness from the public and increase the adoption rate of decentralised applications on the Solana ecosystem.

ROK Capital General Partner Brian Kang stated that:

“Solana is one of the fastest-growing networks in the industry, and in addition to injecting capital, this new fund will provide tailored services for projects to successfully accelerate in Korea.”

ROK Capital indicated that it hopes to guide a series of projects related to the Solana network’s basic Web3, decentralised finance (DeFi), and non-fungible token (NFT).

In addition, the fund is also supported by blockchain consulting firm FactBlock and Korean accelerator DeSpread.

According to Coinmarketcap, Solana’s native token SOL ranks as the 15th largest cryptocurrency, with a market capitalisation of $10,228,021,209. It has increased 25.02% during the last 7days. During the intraday, it was trading at $37.03.

Mango Markets DEX Raises $70M through MNGO Tokens Sale

Mango Markets decentralised exchange (DEX) based on the Solana network announced Wednesday the company raised around $70 million through its MNGO tokens sale.

This token sale is one of the largest token sales on the Solana blockchain in recent months. During the token sale period that has been listed on the exchange, a total of more than $500 million USDC has been invested in it to compete for token share.

In the end, as much as $70,462,383 was locked in a few minutes-this value far exceeds that of most decentralised protocols that raised funds in the seed round, which ranged from approximately $1 million to $15 million.

Mango Markets provides a decentralised trading platform for cryptocurrency spot markets, perpetual contracts, and lending transactions. Cryptocurrency investors have regarded the Solana blockchain as a strong competitor of the Ethereum network due to its high liquidity and low gas fees.

Solana was founded in 2017 as a completely open-source public blockchain designed to provide decentralised finance (DeFi) solutions in a scalable manner. Solana has raised a total of $335.8 million in funding over six rounds. Their latest funding valued at $314 million was raised on Jun 9, 2021, from an Initial Coin Offering round led by Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain.

In addition, as reported by Blockchain.News on June 4, the Solana Foundation cooperated with ROK Capital, a large-scale blockchain accelerator in South Korea, to jointly launch a $20 million fund to expand Solana’s blockchain ecosystem in South Korea.

Image source: Mango Markets

Solana (SOL) Hits New AHT of $145, Displaces Dogecoin To Become the Seven-Largest Cryptocurrency

This week has started with a bullish trading performance of the cryptocurrency market, with Ethereum surges showing strong gains. Ethereum started the week with an impressive 22% gain and is likely to challenge the key $4,000 price level. Meanwhile, Bitcoin has started the week with a 1.71% gain and has reached $51,734.64 at the time of writing.

Other top altcoin performers include Solana (SOL) and Filecoin (FIL), which rose 46% and 60%, respectively.

It is a great week for Solana as it has risen among the top largest cryptocurrencies and is currently number 7 and 46% up in the last seven days.

SOL was trading at $1.7 per coin at the beginning of the year, but its price has climbed up by over 1,000% to trade at $145 per coin currently. Its price rose more than 200% in August – six days ago, Solana was trading at $100.24 per coin at the end of August.

The rally saw Solana enter the top ten cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization. At the time of writing, Solana is now the seventh-largest cryptocurrency in the world. Its rally saw it surpassed other cryptocurrencies like Polkadot, gaining the seventh position after overtaking Dogecoin and displacing Uniswap from the top ten cryptocurrencies.

When the price of a crypto asset increases so quickly, it is not easy to know whether that is their true value or whether the cryptocurrency is about to see a dramatic plunge. However, Solana sees growth because it is on-demand.

In recent weeks, Solana’s institutional demand has risen, partly contributed by the network’s entry into the NFT landscape. Solana recently launched Degenerate Ape Academy, which sold a collection of pictures of cartoon apes. Around 10,000 pictures of such NFTs were sold in the first 10 minutes after the launch, which drove the SOL coin higher as people demanded the cryptocurrency to purchase the cartoon apes.

The August rally of NFTs has also helped Solana to see an uptrend as the record sales during that rally hit around $900 million.

In recent months, Solana is attracting a wide range of decentralized finance (DeFi) projects, cutting out intermediaries and financial institutions and executing financial transactions over the blockchain. There are more than 400 projects built on Solana’s network, including various DeFi projects that take the middlemen, such as banks, out of financial transactions.

Lastly, Solana is gaining momentum because people are looking for alternatives to Ethereum. Solana is considered the “Ethereum killer,” just like Cardon and Polkadot, because of its increasing popularity.

Total Value Locked in DeFi Jumps to $208 Billion with Ethereum Taking the Lion’s Share

The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector took the world by storm in 2020 after its value grew by fourteen times. Its presence in the crypto space continues to be felt as its value continues to skyrocket.

According to DefiLlama, a ranking and metrics provider for DeFi protocols, the total value locked (TVL) in this sector stands at $208 billion.

Ethereum leads the pack in DeFi’s TVL at $141.92 billion, representing 68.2%. Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Solana take the second and third positions at $17.38 billion and $10.71 billion, respectively.

DeFi is founded on blockchain-based smart contracts that fulfil certain financial functions based on the underlying code.

Some experts expect this industry to experience more growth in the coming years. For instance, Matthew Roszak, a veteran crypto investor, recently stated that the DeFi sector would become an $800 billion industry thanks to increasing mainstream crypto adoption, the global chase for yield, and increased inflation.

On the other hand, blockchain analytic firm Chainalysis reported that the United States had the highest DeFi adoption rate, followed by Vietnam, Thailand, China, and the United Kingdom.

More investments continue trickling into Ethereum 2.0

According to market insight provider Glassnode:

“The total value in the ETH 2.0 Deposit Contract just reached an ATH of 7,906,210 ETH.”

Ethereum 2.0, also known as the Beacon Chain, is seen as a game-changer that will offer a transition from the current proof of work (POW) consensus mechanism to a proof of stake (POS) framework. As a result, scalability and efficiency will be boosted.

Meanwhile, the holding continues to thrive in the Ethereum network. Reportedly:

“The number Ethereum addresses Holding 100+ Coins just reached a 4-month high of 43,048.”

Holding is a favoured strategy in the crypto space because coins are kept in cold storage and digital wallets for future purposes other than speculation.

Solana Elbows Tether to 4th Position amid NFT Secondary Sales Clocking $500M

Days after flipping Cardano (ADA) to become the fifth top cryptocurrency, Solana (SOL) is not relenting in its quest to scale the heights because it has dethroned Tether (USDT) at the fourth position.

Despite Solana being founded in 2017, it has made significant strides this quarter because it recently hit an all-time high (ATH) price of $249. The fourth cryptocurrency was up by 1.57% in the last 24 hours to reach $242 with a market capitalization of $73.02 billion.

What is making the “Ethereum killer” tick?

Just like Cardano and Polkadot, Solana is considered an “Ethereum killer” because of its increased popularity based on high speeds, low fees, and minimal congestion.

These networks are decentralized and can interact with smart contracts, used in the booming non-fungible token (NFT) and decentralized finance (DeFi) markets.

Solana is able to attain high transaction speeds because it merges the proof of stake (POS) consensus mechanism with the proof of history, which enables computers to keep time on a decentralized network without all of them communicating about it.

Therefore, Solana is a completely open-source public blockchain designed to offer DeFi and NFT solutions in a scalable manner.

Solana’s NFT secondary sales hit $500 million

According to Mason Nystrom, a research analyst at Messari Crypto said:

“As the Solana ecosystem continues to expand, NFTs on Solana have seen formidable growth. Total NFT secondary sales volume on Solana has officially reached $500 million, doing so in just three months.”

NFTs are blockchain-based ownership digital assets, and their value is pegged on their uniqueness, given that the tokens are non-divisible and have to be bought in their entirety.

Therefore, these traits create intrinsic value for NFTs because of their limited supply.

Last month, the leading Italian luxury fashion house Dolce & Gabbana bagged $6 million from fashion NFT dubbed Collezione Genesi.

With Solana having gained 15,000% so far this year, it seems the sky’s the limit for the fourth-largest cryptocurrency.

The Number of Non-Zero Ethereum Addresses Hit an ATH

Last Friday, The Ethereum (ETH) network continued to attract more participants because the number of non-zero addresses broke the record at 66,788,634, according to market insight provider Glassnode.

This coincides with the fact that Ethereum has been experiencing remarkable growth because of increased utility from booming sectors like decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Furthermore, renewed interest from short-term traders has driven ETH’s price through the roof. The second-largest cryptocurrency reached a notable milestone in its 6-year journey by setting a new all-time high (ATH) price of $4,650.

Even though it has retraced a bit, Ethereum continues to experience remarkable growth this quarter.

The challenge of high gas fees

Despite the notable strides being made on the Ethereum network, high gas fees remain a significant challenge. Data analytic firm IntoTheBlock explained:

“Ethereum has been rough for small players lately. The Gas Cost Heatmap reveals how over the last 7-days, in the afternoon the Gas cost has been consistently above 200 Gwei.”

Therefore, this explains why the popularity of other networks like Solana has increased. For instance, Solana dethroned Tether (USDT) at the fourth position because it offers high speeds, low fees, and minimal congestion.

Solana can attain high transaction speeds because it merges the proof of stake (POS) consensus mechanism with the proof of history, which enables computers to keep time on a decentralized network without all of them communicating about it.

Nevertheless, the high gas fee problem witnessed on the Ethereum network is expected to be amicably solved by the ETH 2.0 deposit contract, which was launched in December 2020. It seeks to offer a transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism from the current proof-of-work (POW) framework.

Crypto Market Capitalization Inches Closer to $3 Trillion

The cryptocurrency market has experienced twists and turns in 2021, but this has not dampened its spirits to soar to new heights. This market’s capitalization is a stone’s throw away from the $3 trillion mark as it stands at $2.96 trillion.

This upward momentum has been boosted as leading cryptocurrencies continue setting new all-time highs. For instance, Bitcoin broke the record at $68,500 in the last 24 hours as more investments continue trickling into this market.

Furthermore, Ethereum topped $4,800, a scenario not seen in its 6-year journey.

The crypto market has been experiencing an uptick in activities based on the ripple effect of some of the ecosystems.

For instance, Solana (SOL) is experiencing significant growth based on the high transaction speeds it offers because it merges the proof-of-history and proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms.

As a result, its demand in booming decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFT) sectors continues to grow.

Miners emerge as some of the biggest beneficiaries in the crypto space

As the value of the crypto market continues to increase, miners are benefiting from the surge based on the revenue generated. For instance, Bitcoin miners’ revenue has surged by 550% since the 2020 halving.

On-chain metrics provider Glassnode explained:

“Bitcoin miners see BTC income halved every four years. In the current epoch, miners average between 900 and 1,000 BTC per day. Despite this reduction in BTC denominated income, miner revenue in USD is up 550% since the 2020 halving, and approaching an ATH of $62M+ per day.”

Despite Bitcoin miners making a kill with $13.6 billion, Ethereum miners have earned the most in 2021 with a revenue of $17 billion, according to crypto insight provider Arcane Research.

This is based on the massive activity witnessed on the Ethereum network, which has increased transaction fees.

Solana Joins BTC, ETH on Bloomberg Terminal

Solana (SOL) becomes the third cryptocurrency, after Bitcoin and Ethereum, to be added on Bloomberg terminals as a standalone price tracker was developed by the media giant and Galaxy Digital.

American digital currency service provider Galaxy Digital’s European head, Tim Grant, said that Bloomberg Terminal’s price tracker “Bloomberg Galaxy Solana Index” will allow people to start tracking Solana on its terminal, as it went live on November 16 across Bloomberg terminals globally. The index will become the first institutional-level pricing index.

Since the two companies began their collaboration in 2018, they have successfully issued five total crypto indexes.

Solana has surged over 11,700% in the past 12 months and is considered by many as the “Ethereum killer” because of its increased popularity based on high speeds, low fees, and minimal congestion, further supporting a belief that someday it will overtake Ethereum as the go-to for smart contracts.

Apart from its market performance, investors are also interested in Solana due to its capability to perform more than 1,000 transactions per second (TPS), which is about 60 times more than the current Ethereum network is capable of processing – about 15 TPS, according to data from Blockchair and Solana Beach.

According to Coinmarketcap data, Solana has surpassed Cardano (ADA) to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market value with a market cap of $68,700,460,002.

Recently, Solana’s institutional demand has risen, partly contributed by the network’s entry into the NFT landscape. According to CoinGeko, Solana is currently trading at $226.37.