Crypto Asset Manager Grayscale Says Solana’s Steady Chain Growth Could Boost Its Native GROUND token above $260, reached during the peak of the 2021 bull market.
In its latest “Crypto’s Financial Bazaar” report, Grayscale claims that Solana leads the blockchain category in terms of number of users, trading volume and transaction fees.
“These are not the only considerations that matter, but on these blockchain fundamentals, Solana stands out from its peers.” The Grayscale research team noted this.
According to the report, Solana averages 4,587 users per day and processes up to 96,200 transactions per day, with the highest transactions per second among major blockchains including Ethereum, BNB Chain and Tron.
Grayscale: SOL could surpass $260 despite annual revenue of $5 billion
Raydium, a decentralized exchange and a core component of Solana’s DeFi infrastructure, has seen over $1.2 trillion in volume, more than any other blockchain ecosystem. Jupiter, Solana’s primary DEX aggregator, is also the largest in the crypto industry in terms of volume.
Pump.fun, a memecoin launchpad and social app, attracts approximately 2 million monthly active users and generates approximately $1.2 million in daily revenue.
Helium, a decentralized physical infrastructure project focused on mobile hotspots, now provides cheaper services than centralized alternatives. The Solana-based protocol has 1.5 million daily users, 112,000 hotspots, and partnerships with major telecommunications companies like AT&T and Telefonica.
These examples represent just a fraction of Solana’s 500+ unique applications.
As a general-purpose blockchain, Solana ranks third in terms of NFT trading, fifth in stablecoin transaction volume, and seventh in tokenized assets.
Solana applications generate approximately $425 million in monthly fees, or more than $5 billion annualized.
“We believe that fees are the most direct measure of total demand for a blockchain and its applications, and the data indicates that there is substantial demand for Solana.” According to research by Grayscale.
Solana has carved out a competitive position by offering fast and cheap transactions.
The network produces new blocks every 400 milliseconds and transactions reach finality in approximately 12 to 13 seconds. Transaction costs have remained low, with users paying an average fee of just $0.02 per year to date.
Solana uses local fee markets, which limit fee competition to specific high-demand applications, and median daily transaction fees this year have averaged just $0.001.
Additionally, an upcoming upgrade called Alpenglow is expected to reduce the finalization time to 100-150 milliseconds.
1,000+ Solana Developers Create What Ethereum Can’t Easily Copy
Despite crypto user experience challenges, Solana offers one of the best experiences for new users in the industry. Its fast and cheap transactions, diverse applications, and “monolithic” design eliminate the need to link assets across network components. Its wallet infrastructure, led by Phantom, also contributes to this advantage.
Solana uses a separate architecture called Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), unlike the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) used by Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon and Avalanche.
SVM-based applications cannot be easily transferred to non-SVM blockchains, which can create persistent demand.
More than 1,000 full-time developers work on applications based on Solana and SVM.
The number of developers focused on Solana has also grown faster than any other smart contract platform over the past two years, according to Electric Capital’s Blockchain Developer Report.
Industry Leaders’ Project SOL Could Surpass $260 to $520 by Year-End
Considering these metrics and the 7% staking reward for validators securing the network, Grayscale analysts estimate that SOL is currently undervalued at $202.36.
Grayscale’s research indicates that the $260 mark reached in November 2021 represents the fair value of SOL based on the consistent growth and key metrics it has achieved since its FTX-induced crash in December 2022.
“Since the FTX bankruptcy, SOL has significantly outperformed the FTSE/Grayscale Smart Contract Platforms Crypto Sector Index,» Confirmed Grayscale.
This matches similar bullish projections from industry leaders.
In September 2024, Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, said Solana was undervalued and predicted it would capture up to 50% of Ethereum’s market cap at the time, equating to a valuation of $330.
VanEck also predicted that SOL could reach $520 before the end of the year.
Ray Youssef, CEO of NoOnes, told CryptoNews that Solana is gaining ground in the layer 1 arms race, with strong fundamentals, growing institutional inflows, and stable revenue leadership.
He highlighted Solana’s resilience in the third quarter and upcoming network upgrades that could push it to $300 by early 2026.
Is Solana’s On-Chain Growth Grayscale Paris – $260 Just the Beginning? appeared first on Cryptonews.
