Solana recently made it into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, while Solana ecosystem projects Audius and Arweave have also been rallying
Last week saw many cryptocurrencies make gains, with Bitcoin almost reaching $50,000 and Ether testing the resistance around $3,300. Neither of them, however, came close to regaining their all-time highs from last quarter.
Both were outperformed though by Solana (SOL), which has pushed its way into the top 10 cryptocurrencies with a market cap of over $21 billion. After surpassing its May all-time high of $61.44 last Monday, SOL went on to rise by another 35% to set a new all-time high of $83.23 on Saturday.
Solana’s innovative Proof of History consensus mechanism means dramatically increased scalability, and with an average transaction cost of just $0.00025, Solana is becoming a popular blockchain for decentralised app (dApp) development.
One of the most recent additions to the Solana ecosystem is PsyOptions, an American style options protocol that allows users to write options for any asset represented by an SPL token – a fungible token standard for the Solana blockchain.
The rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) seems to have helped Solana in its recent rally. Metaplex launched in June to enable artists and creators to build NFT experiences on Solana and is already proving popular.
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More recently, Degenerate Ape Academy launched on Solana and its initial collection of 10,000 ape NFTs sold out in just eight minutes, reaching nearly $6 million in overall trading volume.
Solana-based projects have also seen their tokens rally along with SOL. Audius provides decentralised music sharing and streaming on Solana and its AUDIO token is up 73% over the last seven days.
Meanwhile, decentralised storage protocol Arweave – which was used by Degenerate Ape Academy to store its NFT – has also exploded in popularity, with its AR token surging by 46% over the last seven days.
After setting a new all-time high on Saturday, SOL price fell for the rest of the weekend. It is currently changing hands at $73.45 at time of writing.
