Solana
Ethereum Blockchain’s Ether (ETH) Token Adds Almost an Entire Solana (SOL) to Its Market Value
The market capitalization of the programmable blockchain Solana’s sol (GROUND) the token could surpass that of its rival Ethereum’s ether (ETH) during the next bull cycle, a crypto observer said in December.
This week, the market showed how herculean the task would be: the price of ether jumped more than 19% on Monday, adding $70 billion to its market capitalization for a total of $439 billion, according to the TradingView data source. This represents a gain equivalent to almost 90% of SOL’s market value in a single day.
The surge followed renewed hopes that a spot ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) will be approved in the United States Analysts say The gap between ether and rivals like SOL will widen in the coming months as a potential spot ETF launch paves the way for mainstream institutional adoption. Until now, only Bitcoin had this privilege.
At press time, Ether was the second-largest digital asset in the world, with a market capitalization of $453 billion, surpassed only by that of Bitcoin. (BTC) $1.38 trillion. Sol, meanwhile, ranks fifth with a market value of $82 billion.
“The near-term outlook for ETH is incredibly bullish. Let’s not overcomplicate things,” Ilan Solot, co-head of digital assets at Marex Solutions, said in an email. “The ETF announcement is almost a black swan, even for (most) investors. investors, markets are significantly short or underweight ETH, a lot of ETH liquidity is locked in staking, and the macroeconomic backdrop is favorable,”
Since its inception in 2015, Ethereum has been the world’s leading smart contract blockchain, powering over 4,000 decentralized applications. It hosts some of the most critical decentralized finance protocols like Uniswap, AAVE and tokenization initiatives like BUIDL from BlackRock. Furthermore, Ethereum has never experienced Solana type failure.
Still, there have been instances, especially during bull runs, where traders have turned to Solana to bypass Ethereum’s network congestion and higher transaction costs. For example, Solana’s share of global trading volume on decentralized exchanges increased earlier this year thanks to the coin frenzy. This has spurred discussions that SOL will eventually overtake ETH.
If ETH ETF speculation and recent price action are to be believed, such discussions appear premature.