At a time when Ethereum is currently transitioning towards a faster protocol, other Layer 1 blockchains are expanding their presence and chipping away at Ethereum's share of the smart contract market. Early in the year, Ethereum was the undisputed leader of the DeFi blocked funds market, with a share of 97%. Now, however, this has shrunk to 63%.

Solana has since bitten off 5% of the total DeFi market pie to take second place in this space. Meanwhile, the second-place NFT platform by cash turnover with $7.5 million is also Solana-based. Over the course of October and November, Magic Eden caught up with OpenSea in terms of the total number of transactions, despite trailing them significantly in terms of the number of users and turnover. These heights were reached just four months after Solana began to release its own non-fungible tokens. 

Solana's fast transaction speeds (currently 2887 TPS), low commission ($0.00025) and decent level of decentralisation (1325 nodes) are significant draws for investors. As such, Solana Labs has managed to attract $314 million worth of venture investments for closed token sales, while CEO Anatoly Yakovenko has set a key target of 1 billion users. Proof of a high level of interest from institutional investors can also be found in Solana's current position in terms of open futures interest, with SOL futures currently sitting in third place with $860 million in volume. 

Investor interest in the project has catapulted Solana into fifth place in the cryptocurrency rankings with a market cap of $55 billion. However, if the leaderboard was adjusted to include only independent blockchains with smart contract support, Solana would come in just behind Ethereum.

According to figures for November, SOL was one of the few coins that rose during the month. Over the last seven days, it has been the only member of the Top 5 to post positive results (stablecoins excepted). The blockchain periodically experiences problems due to DDoS attacks, leading to transaction hold-ups and price corrections. However, the project is still young, and it needs time to overcome such teething problems.

StormGain Analytics Department

(cryptocurrency trading, exchange and storage platform)