Original Title: The Year in Solana: A Comeback Story
Original author: Logan Hitchcock
Original source: https://decrypt.co/
Compiled by: Daisy, Mars Finance
Solana This Year: A Comeback Journey
As a layer 1 decentralized network, Solana made significant progress in 2024, not only greatly increasing user activity but also benefiting its native token SOL.
In a remarkable comeback journey, Solana rose from the depths of the 2022 crypto winter to become one of the most favored blockchains this year among crypto enthusiasts and retail newcomers.
"Chewing glass is in our DNA, and we will get through this together," said Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko on Twitter (now called X) during the 2022 winter.
Fast forward two years, with a resurgence in risk appetite and meme coin frenzy, Solana welcomed an explosive growth in users in 2024.
With upcoming technological breakthroughs, such as the software client Firedancer, Solana is poised to break the old narrative about its frequent downtimes and technical disadvantages.
With its native token SOL surging nearly 200% in price over the past year, Solana has now become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. With the regulatory environment becoming clearer and market speculation related to ETFs driving momentum, Solana's supporters are filled with greater expectations for the future.
Before looking to the future, let's review Solana's performance in 2024.
Solana reshapes the foundation and breaks historical highs
After the FTX collapse at the end of 2022, Solana's trading price briefly dropped to just $8. However, the network achieved an extraordinary recovery, rising over 275% this year and briefly setting a new all-time high.
Once seen as a casualty of the crypto winter by some, Solana's recovery demonstrates the resilience of its ecosystem. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of competitor Ethereum, has also publicly praised it.
According to Syncracy's data from the past year, Solana has outperformed Ethereum, the second-largest crypto asset, on multiple key metrics, such as real economic value, active address count, and decentralized trading volume, even though its market cap remains far below Ethereum.
Although its price has fallen 17% from the historic high of $263 set on November 23, with the increasing possibility of a Solana ETF, the network's native token may gain wider adoption through traditional financial media.
Meme coins super cycle?
Meme coins, tokens associated with internet memes and pop culture events, experienced unprecedented growth in 2024, leveraging cultural relevance and speculative waves, especially on Solana.
Although meme coins are not a new phenomenon, iconic tokens like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) have now entered the top 15 tokens by market capitalization, becoming darlings of the last cycle. The broad emergence of new tokens on Solana has given rise to what is known as the 'meme coin super cycle.'
What catalyzed this cycle? Platforms like Pump.fun—a meme coin launch platform—greatly simplified the token creation process, allowing any user to create a new token with just a few clicks.
This accessibility has driven the creation of over 4 million tokens since the platform's launch in January 2024.
While most tokens currently have no value, some have brought significant returns to traders and even entered the top 100 by market capitalization, enough to catch attention and trade in the market.
The Legend of Solana
Solana's first smartphone—Solana Saga—initially received a lukewarm response among loyal members of the Solana community but experienced a revival by the end of 2023.
As users rushed to obtain soulbound token airdrops linked to smartphones, the Solana Saga phone experienced a wave of frenzy at the last moment, ultimately selling out.
With this momentum, Solana launched its second-generation phone—Seeker—in 2024. Seeker offers users a cheaper alternative to Saga while featuring upgraded hardware.
Seeker is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2025 and has already received over 140,000 pre-orders, with device sales exceeding $65 million.
Solana's real-world connections extend beyond smartphones to handheld gaming devices and a range of decentralized infrastructure (DePIN) projects.
These projects attempt to redefine real-world infrastructure using decentralized networks and blockchain technology, which some advocates say could be a revolutionary shift.
For example, Helium (decentralized mobile network) and Teleport (ride-sharing platform based on Solana technology) achieved significant growth in 2024. Helium's Mobile token (MOBILE) has risen over 300% year-to-date, highlighting growth momentum in the sector.
Technological improvements are coming soon
Solana's technical foundation once fluctuated due to issues such as blockchain downtime and failures. However, improvements to the infrastructure are on the way, most notably with the release of Solana Firedancer.
Firedancer, led by crypto investment firm and infrastructure developer Jump Crypto, was a highlight of Solana's recent Breakpoint conference held in Singapore.
This innovative validator client aims to optimize hardware utilization and eliminate software inefficiencies, laying the groundwork for enhancing Solana's network performance.
The early prototype of Firedancer, Freakdancer, launched on the Solana mainnet in September. According to its uptime page, no downtime has been reported so far.
Institutions believe Solana has matured
This year, active cryptocurrency participants flocked to Solana, but global institutions are also quietly paying attention, including VanEck. Just a year after Visa thoroughly analyzed Solana's scalability, low-cost structure, and its fit for payment scenarios, other financial giants joined the Solana ecosystem.
At the beginning of 2024, PayPal made headlines by enabling its PYUSD stablecoin on Solana, highlighting Solana's potential as digital payment infrastructure and emphasizing that PYUSD on Solana unlocks 'significant benefits' for commercial applications.
Major financial institutions are looking to include Solana's native token in mainstream investment channels alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum, thus providing broader access for mainstream financial participants.
