3 Factors That Fueled Solana to Overtake BNB as Fourth Largest Crypto 

As Solana continues its remarkable rally, we’ve highlighted three major factors that could be attributed to SOL’s recent price surge. 

Solana (SOL) has continued to record significant gains in recent times, ranking among the best-performing coins. 

SOL surged by 48.8% in the past week alone, surpassing the $100 mark. Notably, SOL is up 57.8% in two weeks and 93% over the past 30 days. 

SOL Flips BNB to Become Fourth Largest Crypto 

Following its remarkable price rally, SOL flipped XRP last week to become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency. While crypto community members were still in awe, Solana overtook Binance Chain’s BNB to rank as the fourth-largest crypto by market cap. 

Solana achieved this feat on December 22 after its market capitalization surged to $41.38 billion. 

SOLANA FLIPPED BNB pic.twitter.com/ISdrnGfoTb

— borovik.eth (@3orovik) December 22, 2023

Since then, SOL has breached major resistance levels, rising to a remarkable $124.96 in the early hours of today. However, the coin plunged to $113 following a minor pullback in Bitcoin price. 

It is worth mentioning that SOL began its tremendous rally in October. As of October 1, the leading crypto asset changed hands at merely $21. Interestingly, SOL’s price has increased over 5X ever since. 

In the hours leading up to press time, SOL was trading at $113.94, up 2.4% over the past 24 hours. Despite its latest retracement, SOL is still ranked as the fourth largest crypto asset with a valuation of $48,022,102,840 ($48.02 billion).  

3 Factors Responsible for SOL’s Price Surge 

Solana’s recent price surge is not a mere fluke but a result of multiple factors occurring at the same time. 

Rapidly Growing DeFi Sector 

Decentralized finance projects on Solana have attracted the interest of crypto investors. This is reflected in the massive spike of Solana’s total value locked (TVL). 

Solana’s TVL has experienced steady growth since October 13, 2023, when it had a paltry $310 million locked across over 100 DeFi platforms. The network’s TVL has now surpassed $1 billion to approximately $1.53 billion. 

Increased Whale Activity  

In addition, there is growing interest in Solana among crypto whales. These whales are seen moving huge amounts of SOL coins to and from exchanges. 

According to Whale Alert, crypto whales have shuffled 4,319,735 (4.31 million) SOL, equivalent to $264.31 million. Over the past day, the most significant whale activity involved the movement of 2M SOL transferred from Binance to an unknown wallet. 

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 2,000,000 #SOL (225,992,286 USD) transferred from #Binance to unknown wallethttps://t.co/i5mWaOGStW

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) December 26, 2023

Growing User Activity 

The number of monthly active addresses on Solana has also recorded a significant spike in December. On-chain data from The Block shows that there were 10.46 million monthly active addresses in November. Interestingly, Solana’s monthly active address in December is currently around 17.26 million.  

Aside from active addresses, a massive 7.67 million new addresses have been created on Solana this month. Notably, interest in Solana surged rapidly following the launch of memecoin Bonk (BONK). 

Many traders who missed out on the BONK rally are hoping to position themselves as they anticipate the next memecoin on Solana that could give them massive profits.