KEY POINTS
- VanEck is a first mover this year in filing for a potential $SOL ETF
- Solana is home to $PENGU, $FARTCOIN, $PNUT, and $AI16Z
- $SOL logged a new all-time high as crypto celebrated the 2024 US elections results
The Solana blockchain rose to prominence in 2024 amid unmatched activity around memecoins launched on the network and upcoming technological upgrades that could cement its place as one of the best chains in the cryptocurrency industry.
Solana has been touted as a more scalable option than the Bitcoin network and other chains due to its fast and low-cost transaction offerings. However, the chain's native crypto SOL was hit hard during the crypto winter in 2022, making the blockchain lose ground in the competition.
Two years since the SOL token plunged as low as $8 at one point, it is now up by over 80% in the year, proving that there is redemption for projects that offer true utility.
Institutions Warm Up to Solana
As was the case with Bitcoin this year, institutions were more open to Solana this year. The gist is, Solana doesn't have exchange-traded funds (ETFs) yet, but it was able to attract a sizeable number of traditional financial firms.
- PayPal – Earlier this year, the payments giant enabled its PYUSD stablecoin on the blockchain, noting how the integration unlocked "significant benefits for commerce use cases."
- VanEck – Investment management firm VanEck filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) late in June for what could be the nation's first SOL ETF, marking a pivot outside the spot BTC and Ethereum ETFs realm.
- Brazil SOL ETF – In August, Brazil became the first country to approve a spot Solana ETF, further indicating how global firms are noticing the chain and its potential.
- Other ETF Filings – Canary Capital and Bitwise have since also made the first move toward potentially issuing a Solana ETF.
🔥 VANECK: "We're optimistic that over time regulators will approve these products," regarding their #Solana ETF filing. pic.twitter.com/onJyNg1EGS
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) November 15, 2024
A Memecoin Craze Only Solana Knows
Solana became known this year for bringing forth some of the most popular memecoins that helped drive much activity within the network. While some of Solana-based meme tokens have lost most of their value over the last few months, the blockchain is the home of some of the most prominent crypto meme tokens there are today.
- BONK – With a $2.2 billion market cap, BONK has never left Top 15 rankings in the world's largest memecoins by market value.
- AI16Z – Becoming the first venture capital decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) led by AI agents, the AI16Z token was one of the breakout memecoins this year, logging a 450% spike in its December chart.
- PENGU – The Pudgy Penguins non-fungible token (NFT) collection's official crypto coin was just released in December but it already hit a $2 billion market cap – a feat only a very few crypto coins have achieved.
- FARTCOIN – This memecoin was also among the most popular tokens this year, having been up by over 400% in the last 30 days and continuously gathering real people in its community that make the meme token a true gem for memecoin fans.
- GOAT – Goatseus Maximus was created by a Pump.fun user but was soon adopted by community-loved AI bot Truth Terminal. It has had its ups and downs, but remains a popular choice among Solana memecoin users.
- PNUT and MOODENG – Solana has a vast trove of animal-themed memecoins but in 2024, Peanut the Squirrel and Moo Deng (a pygmy hippo) broke the internet and crypto space for sure.
The Wintry Road to Breaking $SOL's All-Time High
As mentioned, SOL prices were hit hard during the crypto winter of 2022 that was triggered by FTX's collapse. Over the last two years, the Solana blockchain had to toil hard to regain footing.
By 2024, there were still ups and downs, but Solana builders worked to improve the chain's infrastructure (with more upgrades expected in 2025), leading to 2024's breakout performance.
Following the election of pro-crypto candidates in the 2024 U.S. elections, Solana was among the major altcoins that rallied significantly. SOL jumped above $260 for the first time, erasing its previous all-time high.
Notably, some crypto analysts tagged Solana as one of the unfortunate casualties of the FTX collapse and subsequent crypto winter. After all, the said winter eliminated many crypto firms and projects.
However, the blockchain proved them wrong, bouncing back from the winter fall and even logging higher user volumes than the Ethereum chain in October.
Solana is far from reaching Bitcoin's market cap, but it can be safe to say that in terms of popularity, this blockchain is quite a competitor, given all the lows it suffered over the last two years. It proved that when developers and builders come together to improve innovation, blockchain can be fast, secure, scalable, and low-cost.
