Solana (SOL) experienced a notable 36.6% increase in value between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2. However, SOL’s failure to breach the $44.50 mark resulted in a 10% correction down to $40 on Nov. 6. This movement has left many investors pondering whether the ecosystem growth and network activity support Solana’s present $16.9 billion market capitalization.
Solana’s peak at $44.50 on Nov. 2 was the highest it had reached since August 2022, and coincided with the Solana Breakpoint 2023 global conference held in Amsterdam. The price hype during this period even prompted BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes to admit to being a “degen” and invest in SOL, despite referring to the token as “just a meme.”
During the Breakpoint conference, the Solana Foundation unveiled the testnet launch of Firedancer, a new client aimed at enhancing speed, reliability, and reducing hardware requirements for validators, addressing a longstanding criticism of this layer-1 blockchain that offers parallel computing for smart contracts.
Additionally, on Oct. 31, the Solana Foundation announced the availability of its network dataset on Google Cloud BigQuery, a serverless data warehouse solution with built-in machine learning and artificial intelligence. This enables developers and companies to access archival data and analytical insights transparently and securely.
On the development front, the Solana Foundation has maintained a consistent level of activity. This includes the approval by validators in September of the v.1.16 update, which introduced confidential transactions for SPL tokens on the Solana network using zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs.
However, not all news has been positive for Solana despite its token’s price performance. For example, on Oct. 17, the decentralized liquid staking protocol, Lido Finance, announced its decision to cease operations on the network, citing unsustainable financials and low fees, which led to a community vote sealing the service’s termination.
The central question that lingers is whether the on-chain activity and metrics related to decentralized applications (DApps) support the SOL price hike. Thus, one should analyze how Solana’s on-chain data and ecosystem growth compares to its competitors.
Solana’s reduced total value locked and activity pose considerable risks
Solana’s primary DApp metric began showing weakness in September as the network’s total value locked (TVL), measuring the amount deposited in its smart contracts, reached its lowest levels in over 2…
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