Market highlights: Solana hits a new all-time high as it flips Cardano (ADA) and Tether (USDT) to settle at position four

Solana (SOL) whose parent blockchain, Solana, has become one of the closest competitors of Ethereum, is continuing with its monster bull run. It hit a new all-time high (ATH) of $250.47 in the early hours today before taking a slight pullback.

At the time of writing, SOL was trading at $243.90, $6.5 down from the new ATH.

The price movement has pushed SOL token up the ranks to stand at position four in terms of market capitalization. It has dislodged Cardano (ADA) and Tether (USDT) on its way up the ladder.

Cardano (ADA) is now at position six while Tether (USDT) is at position five.

At the time of writing, Solana (SOL) has a market cap of $73,431,970,569 and a fully diluted market cap of $123,914,005,020.

Solana’s monster Bull Run in 2021

Solana has been on an unstoppable bullish rally throughout 2021 especially in the last three months.

Since the beginning of 2021, the SOL price has gone up 16000%, making it the talk of the town among investors.

The rise of SOL’s price is largely attributed to the Solana network’s rising popularity as a more scalable solution for decentralized application developers compared to Ethereum, which has dominated the space for a very long time.

Solana blockchain is popular for its ultra-fast transactions and low transaction cost.

Rising Ethereum gas fee and need for alternatives

Also, the rising gas fee on the Ethereum blockchain is continually forcing DeFi players to opt for affordable solutions like Solana.

The total value of all DeFi Protocols that is currently locked on Solana is about $14.98 billion.

Additionally, NFT players are also using Solana and NFT sales taking place on Solana have also skyrocketed.

Scott Melker, a renewed crypto analyst, while explaining why Solana is growing at such a fast rate said:

“Solana is a legitimate competitor to Ethereum, with lightning fast transactions at a fraction of the price. The rapid increase in value is largely a result of crypto gaming and successful NFT launches. Developers and projects have been building on Solana for years, which is manifesting in an explosion of price and adoption.”