Solana Briefly Overtakes Binance’s BNB By Market Cap

In the past 24 hours, Solana (SOL) has managed to make incredible gains in its market cap resulting in the coin briefly overtaking Binance Coin (BNB) to claim the fourth place.

Yesterday, 21 December, SOL’s market cap began rising from around $36billion, edging itself into fourth position and holding this spot for a quick moment before moving back down to number five.

The margin between the two is now incredibly thin, with both coins sitting at just above the $40bn market cap line, according to CoinMarketCap.

That said, SOL could have the edge as its 24-hour trading volumes vastly outshine BNB. If the value of SOL continues to rise in this, BNB may struggle to maintain its position.

At the time of writing, Solana is priced at around $94.33, up approximately 24% in the last seven-day period. SOL 24-hour trading volumes reached yearly highs of above $5bn today, 22 December, with the market cap peaking at around $40bn.

This isn’t the first time SOL has challenged BNB for its market cap position, having come somewhat close to doing so in November 2021 when SOL held fourth position a price of $249 and a market cap of $75bn.

The BONK Effect

Solana has had a pretty impressive year considering that it has managed to pull back from a bear market that saw its price as low as $9 in January 2023.

In a post detailing the highs and lows of the year, Solana was quick to highlight that the introduction and adoption of memecoin BONK was a catalyst for good. Having initially launched in December 2022, BONK was being distributed to users who were engaging with Solana projects, events, and decentralized applications (dApps).

This was furthered when the BONK mania reached a frenzy point during the BONK airdrop that was only accessible to Solana Saga phone owners. After an incredible price rally for BONK following its listing on Coinbase, the value of the airdrop became higher than the cost of the Saga phone, causing it to sell out in the US and EU. 

Solana adoption

Solana is also becoming increasingly popular amongst developers. In 2023 two Solana hackathons, Hyperdrive and Grizzlython, attracted thousands of registrants, with Hyperdrive notably receiving 907 project submissions.

This increased interest and appetite for innovation from developers owes its thanks to the work Solana has done to roll out new developer resources and improve the overall building experience on Solana however they can.

Surprisingly, this included collaborations with major institutions like Visa and Mastercard who were beginning to take notice of Solana’s potential in the realms of Web2/Web3 transactions, as well as commercial programs bridging Solana Pay with Shopify so that users can make purchases with USDC stablecoin.

Major tech giants such as Google and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have also tapped Solana for its technological prowess, With Google Cloud adding Solana data to the BigQuery public data set program.

Looking ahead to 2024, the Solana Foundation signs off its 2023 roundup with positivity, writing: “By all indications, the Solana community is just getting started. If 2023 was the year that the Solana ecosystem had a renaissance, 2024 will be Solana Summer once again.”