Solana replaces BNB as fourth largest cryptocurrency, is Ethereum next?

This week, SOL surpassed BNB to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency and second-largest altcoin by market capitalization. At this rate, Ethereum could be next.

Solana’s incredible growth

Solana's price action this year has been surprising, and it has no intention of slowing down anytime soon. Meanwhile, Solana’s blockchain has grown across different metrics. This growth can also be linked to both Solana-based projects and various airdrops of the Solana Saga Phone, which issued 30 million BONK tokens (a Solana meme coin) to each new owner of the phone. As a result, Solana surpassed XRP in the market capitalization rankings for the first time, with the latter’s price falling by 1.82% in 7 days.

Solana’s native token, SOL, recently reached a yearly high of $99, helping the network briefly surpass BNB in ​​terms of market capitalization as well. SOL’s 24-hour trading volume increased by more than 33% to over $5.86 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.​

However, Solana has since experienced a price correction and is currently trading at $91. BNB, on the other hand, has seen slow price growth this year, rising just 9% over the past 365 days.​

At the time of writing, BNB was trading at $269, down 22.7% from its yearly high of $348. Solana is now at odds with BNB and it is only a matter of time before it completely overtakes and takes the position of the second largest altcoin.

Can Solana catch up to Ethereum?

The question now is whether Solana can catch up to the second largest blockchain network, Ethereum. While Ethereum still dominates the DeFi, NFT, and smart contract space, Solana is continuing to gain more and more industry share.

In particular, activity on Solana has been on par with Ethereum over the past few weeks, and the chains are currently competitive in terms of DEX trading volume, NFT trading volume, active addresses, transaction count, and stablecoin transfers. Total SOL trading volume on decentralized exchanges hit $1.5 billion in the past 24 hours, the highest level so far this year, according to on-chain analytics platform Artemis.

Solana is currently trading at $91, up 17% over the past seven days, and is on track to once again break out of the $100 price level.If the current rate of price growth continues, we may see Solana return to its current all-time high of $259 in the first half of 2024.

However, Solana still has a long way to go before it can match Ethereum’s network effects and price. Ethereum’s total market cap is currently $278.3 billion, $244 billion more than Solana’s $39.4 billion market cap.