Solana remains the fourth-largest blockchain platform, excluding USDT, which is third by market cap. Over the past year or so, SOL, the native token of the modern network, has been on a rollercoaster ride, outperforming even Bitcoin. This expansion comes despite Bitcoin racing to record all-time highs.
While optimism is high, the crypto market is cooling overall, and there are concerns that the next wave confirming the one that occurred in Q1 2024 may be delayed. However, with crypto analysts keeping an eye on politics and other factors, Solana is gaining momentum.
Solana Attracts More NFT Users Than Ethereum and Polygon
Based on recent on-chain activity, the latest data shows that Solana is the king of NFTs, especially in terms of the number of items minted. At writing, Solana dominates with a 35% market share, nearly double Ethereum’s 16%.
according to NFT PulseSolana attracted 8,400 users in the past day. Meanwhile, others chose Polygon, an Ethereum sidechain, as their preferred platform. There were 6,100 active users in the past day.
At this pace, there were nearly 40,000 active users on Solana last week, bringing the number to over 1.5 million users so far. Interestingly, there are about 706,000 active users on Ethereum in the same time frame every year.
Ethereum achieves the highest trading volume in US dollars
However, when it comes to trading volume, Ethereum leads the way. Over the past day, the premier smart contract platform generated nearly $4.7 million in trading volume, more than double the volume on Solana at around $2.1 million. Over $7.3 billion worth of NFTs have been traded on Ethereum in the past year, more than three times the volume on Solana at just $2 billion.
The shift in user numbers, in favor of Solana, is primarily due to the network’s low transaction fees and high scalability. Although Ethereum’s fees may be higher, gas fees have been on a downward trend over the months.
The lower fees may be due in part to efforts by Ethereum developers to improve the user experience. Earlier this year, the smart contract platform activated Dencun, a hard fork that made layer 2 transactions cheaper.
The cheaper it is to deploy smart contracts and create NFTs, the more users will come. Over the past week, Base, one of the largest Ethereum layer-2 networks by total value locked (TVL), has attracted over 14,500 users.
With Solana chain activity increasing, traders are watching to see if bulls will push the price higher and break the $190 level. A break of this level could send Solana to its 2024 high of $210.
Featured image by dashmydesigner on DeviantArt, chart from TradingView