Solana Records New ATH After 3 Years: Is SOL Ready To Flip USDT?

Solana (SOL) has recorded a new all-time high (ATH) of $262, marking a historic recovery after three years of tumultuous price action. Notably, the token had once fallen as low as $8 at the peak of the FTX exchange collapse and the ensuing crypto bear market.

Solana (SOL), the much-touted “Ethereum killer,” is again in the spotlight. After dominating the 2020-21 crypto bull market, the digital asset saw its value plummet after FTX’s spectacular collapse, led by Sam Bankman-Fried. However, SOL has staged an impressive comeback over the last two years.

At the time of writing, SOL is the fourth-largest cryptocurrency, with a reported market cap of over $123 billion. The layer-1 blockchain’s market cap is just $8 billion shy of overtaking stablecoin Tether’s (USDT) market cap of $130 billion.

Notably, SOL needs a further 10% price appreciation to decisively increase USDT’s market cap and become the third-largest digital asset by market cap. SOL will only trail Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) as the third-largest cryptocurrency.

Given the token’s recent price trajectory, it won’t be surprising to see SOL surging past the leading stablecoin’s market cap before the end of the year. In the last three weeks alone, the token has experienced a remarkable 75% surge, rising from $148 on November 4 to $259 at the time of writing.

While the broader crypto market has gained momentum following the victory of pro-crypto Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump, attributing SOL’s rise solely to this would be disingenuous.

SOL’s remarkable turnaround can be linked to several factors that have spurred increased network adoption. One of the most prominent contributors is the ongoing memecoin frenzy, which has emerged as a dominant narrative in the crypto market.

Memecoins – particularly those based on the Solana blockchain – have emerged as the crypto market’s top narrative over the last year. In October alone, the total market cap of Solana-based memecoins surpassed $10 billion.

This memecoin craze has also translated into heightened network activity for Solana. Between September and October, Solana saw a 42% month-over-month (MoM) increase in active addresses, amounting to approximately 123 million.

Besides benefitting from the memecoin narrative, Solana has also seen increased decentralized finance (DeFi) activity throughout the year. According to DefiLlama data, Solana is home to the second-largest DeFi ecosystem in the world, with a total value locked (TVL) of $9.265 billion.

In addition, there are growing prospects for a Solana-based exchange-traded fund (ETF). A recent report indicates that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is holding active talks with multiple asset managers regarding the potential launch of a new spot Solana ETF.

While SOL’s achievement of a new ATH is impressive, experts believe the token still has significant growth potential. At the time of writing, SOL trades at $259, up 6.2% over the past 24 hours.