Solana bulls are back in action.
SOL, the native token powering layer 1 blockchain Solana, is up over 11% overnight and is the biggest gainer among the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market cap, according to data from Coingecko.
At press time, SOL is trading around $26.09 and has pulled back from a fresh 90-day high of $26.96 earlier today.
On a weekly basis, the so-called Ethereum killer is up a whopping 21% and is now the 12th largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap.
Last week’s price action pushed Solana’s market cap above $10 billion for the first time since its crash amid the FTX meltdown in November 2022.
In the past 24 hours, nearly $5.86 million worth of Solana futures positions have been liquidated, according to data from Coinglass.
Of the total liquidations, 70.26% of positions totaling $4.12 million were blown short trades.
Red bars show blown short trades. Source: coin jar.
Red bars show blown short trades. Source: coin jar.
Despite Solana’s exploits over the past week, SOL is still down 89.81% from its all-time all-time high of $259.96 set in November 2021.
Solana bulls on the rise
The main catalysts behind the rise of SOL are the upcoming migration of the helium network to Solana and a sharp increase in Solana-based NFT trading volume.
Founded in 2019, Helium is a decentralized network of devices called “hotspots” that provide far-reaching connectivity for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The network runs on the blockchain of the same name.
Merging with Solana allows Helium developers to focus on adding more hotspots instead of maintaining the blockchain.
“With the ability to run thousands of transactions per second, combined with its vast ecosystem of developers, applications and integrations, Solana has the speed and scalability needed to take on blockchain stewardship,” states in a recent blog post on the merge event.
The migration is expected to take place next month on March 27th. HNT, Helium’s native token, is up about 6% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
NFT trading activity is also increasing on Solana. NFT sales from Solana jumped 12.68% to $2.63 million over the past 24 hours, per data from Cryptoslam.
During the same period, Ethereum-based NFT sales plunged 10.57%.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment or other advice.