Of all altcoins, Solana (SOL/USD) is one of those with the strongest bullish trend. While the entire crypto market is undeniably buoyant, the cryptocurrency linked to the Solana network reached the eighth spot in market cap at the time of writing, ahead of other leading coins, such as Polkadot (DOT/USD). There is optimism that Solana will begin competing with Ethereum (ETH/USD) long-term, Bloomberg reported on September 6.

CoinGecko reported that the market value of Solana’s SOL token almost tripled in the past three weeks, exceeding $41 billion at present. Supporters tout the lower cost and claimed speed of transactions on Solana for digital collectibles and decentralized finance, areas formerly dominated by Ethereum.

Antoni Trenchev, co-founder at crypto lender Nexo, wrote in an email cited by Bloomberg:

“Solana has a growing ecosystem, projects are being built on it and it’s benefited hugely from the mania that’s taking place in NFTs. The backing of crypto figure Sam Bankman-Fried — chief executive of crypto exchange FTX — is helping.”

Solana markets itself as the fastest blockchain across the globe. According to its website, it has a very low average cost per transaction of $0.00025. Solana raised $314 million in a funding round in June, in which investors such as Polychain Capital, CoinShares, Bankman Fried’s Alameda Research, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz took part.

Jonathan Cheesman, head of over-the-counter and institutional sales at FTX, said of Solana:

“It’s becoming too big to ignore and offers a different smart contract solution to Ethereum.”

Crypto market data provider Pyth Network, which is affiliated with Jump Trading, went live on Solana’s mainnet late last month. This development is expected to bring lots of advantages to DeFi in general. In recent weeks, altcoins like Solana and Cardano (ADA/USD) have surged, stealing the spotlight from top players like Ethereum and Bitcoin (BTC/USD), which are also undergoing a revival of sorts.

However, sceptics maintain that the technological improvements behind these market movements may not justify the magnitude of the movements. In other words, the bullish trend will reverse itself soon.  

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