Solana Smashes Past $100 for First Time Since April 2022

Solana surged past $100 on Saturday afternoon for the first time in 20 months, since April 2022, continuing an upswing that has catapulted SOL to a 770% gain over this time last year.

SOL is up 6% on the day, per data from CoinGecko, jumping to a current price of nearly $103 after hovering below the $100 mark the last couple days. The cryptocurrency flipped XRP on Wednesday to become the fifth-largest coin by market cap, and then flipped Binance Coin (BNB) late Thursday to land in the #4 slot.

As of this writing, Solana has a $44 billion market cap. This past week, weekly transaction volume for decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on the Solana blockchain eclipsed that of exchanges on rival Ethereum for the first time, propelled in part by a rise in popular meme coins like BONK and Dogwifhat (WIF) on Solana.

Other Solana-based tokens have seen substantial gains in recent weeks, even if they’re down in recent days. BONK, for example, surged to an all-time high of $0.00003416 on December 15. It’s down nearly 45% since then, showcasing the famous volatility of meme coins, yet remains up 347% over the past month.

WIF, meanwhile, is up 294% this week alone, even though it has plunged almost 28% from Friday’s all-time high price. Crypto-powered wireless network Helium’s HNT token has marked a 217% gain over the past 30 days, while the network’s MOBILE token is up 1,316% this month following the Helium Mobile service’s nationwide expansion.

Solana is the biggest gainer over the past 24 hours in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, and its 37% rise over the past days makes it a standout within the top 100 as well. Other hot coins this week include Ethereum scaling network Optimism’s OP token (up 49%) and Near Protocol’s NEAR token (up 47%).

By comparison, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap—Bitcoin and Ethereum—have each posted a roughly 3% gain in the past seven days.

Edited by Andrew Hayward