‘Stop calling it beta…’ What’s making Solana investors excited for $500?

• Solana is set to undergo continuous upgrades and transition from “beta” to “final” version. 
• Market watchers have different price targets from $500 to $1000. 

On the 15th of April, Solana [SOL] deployed a patch to ease congestion issues. Interestingly, the patch is part of planned validator schedules that will transition the mainnet network “beta” to the “final” version. 

Along with other enhancements, the Agave validator client’s next release (v2.0) will occur around the 1st of July.

For the uninitiated, validators track everything in Solana and confirm (“vote”) blocks, ensuring network security. 

Asked when Solana will effectively transition from the “beta” version, Co-founder Anatoly Yakavenko responded; 

“You all can stop calling it beta anytime, you know.  I think the right time to do it is when a Firedancer full node is running on mainnet.  Then all the single points of failure have been removed.” 

Agave is currently the dominant validator client on the Solana mainnet, similar to what Geth client is to the Ethereum [ETH] ecosystem. 

Like Ethereum’s diversified validator clients, Firedancer will be Solana’s other option for validator clients to minimize single points of failure. 

How will Solana’s upgrade be priced?

Solana’s meme activity has soared SOL’s value since last quarter. Can it repeat this? Most probably. 

The massive dip over the weekend saw Dogwifhat [WIF], one of Solana’s natives, lead the recovery with a 31% rally on 14th April. So, a definitive recovery could lift meme coins more and spill to Solana. 

BitMEX founder, Arthur Hayes, seemed bullish on Solana, too, after the recent rebound from the weekend crash. He stated; 

“That was the dip. Now we rip. What are we buying on the rebound, fam?”

However, the pseudonymous crypto influencer, Ansem, was uber-bullish, with a $1000 per SOL by the end of the current bull cycle. 

“Fairly confident you will not need another trade for the rest of the cycle if you can hold on to this one.” 

Interestingly, Galaxy’s Digital’s Mike Novogratz claimed that if things were right, SOL could only hit half of Ansem’s projection ($500). 

“Could Solana go to $300, $400, $500? Of course, it could. A lot has to go right for that to happen. But it certainly could.” 

It’s worth noting that Galaxy bought a significant portion of FTX Solana holdings at a discount price. 

However, it is unclear whether Novogratz’s “a lot has to go right” referenced Solana’s network upgrade. Nevertheless, the upgrade could be priced in if market conditions are favorable to SOL. 

In the meantime, SOL traded at $152 and was down 15% in the past week. However, $130 remains crucial support if bulls are to push forward in the short term.