Solana remains the fourth-largest blockchain platform, excluding USDT, which is third in market cap. Over the past year, SOL, the native token of the modern network, has been on the rise, outperforming even Bitcoin. This expansion comes despite Bitcoin racing to hit all-time highs.
While optimism is high, the broader cryptocurrency market is cooling off and there are concerns that the next wave confirming Q1 2024 could be delayed. However, as crypto analysts keep a close eye on politics and other factors, Solana is gaining momentum.
Solana attracts more NFT users than Ethereum and Polygon
Based on recent on-chain activity, the latest data shows that Solana is the king of NFTs, especially in terms of the number of minted items. As of writing, Solana dominates with a 35% market share, almost double that of Ethereum at 16%.
According NFT PulseSolana attracted 8,400 users in the last day. Meanwhile, others choose Polygon, the Ethereum sidechain, as their preferred platform. There were 6,100 active users in the last day.
At this rate, there were roughly 40,000 active users on Solana in the last week, bringing the number to over 1.5 million so far this year. Interestingly, in the same time period there are users on Ethereum, around 706,000 each year.
Ethereum generates the largest trading volume in terms of USD
However, if we look at trading volume, Ethereum has the upper hand. Over the past day, nearly $4.7 million in trading volume has been generated on the first smart contract platform, more than double that of Solana at around $2.1 million. Over the past year, over $7.3 billion worth of NFTs have been traded on Ethereum, more than triple that on Solana at just $2 billion.
The shift in user numbers in favor of Solana is primarily due to the network’s low transaction fees and high scalability. While Ethereum fees may be higher, gas fees have been trending downward over the months.
The reduction in fees could be due in part to efforts by Ethereum developers to improve the user experience. Earlier this year, the smart contract platform activated dencuna hard fork that made layer 2 transactions cheaper.
The cheaper it is to deploy smart contracts and create NFTs, the more users there will be. Over the past week, Base, one of the largest Ethereum layer 2 platforms by total value locked (TVL), attracted over 14,500 users.
As Solana chain activity increases, traders are watching to see if the bulls push ahead and break above $190. A break above this level could see SOL surge to 2024 highs of $210.
Featured image by dashmydesigner on DeviantArt, chart by TradingView
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