Arthur Hayes dumps Solana for Ether, cites divine inspiration

Solana may be the talk of the crypto investment crowd these days, but one eccentric investor is betting that Ether will come up trumps.

Arthur Hayes, co-founder and former CEO of crypto exchange BitMEX says he has exited his Solana investments in favor of Ether. In an X post on Dec. 22, Hayes “confessed” to pivoting from Solana to Ether based on divine inspiration, “a msg (sic) from the Lord while meditating,” he said.

Hayes backs Ether

Hayes has previously been critical of Solana, even expressing scathing reviews of the project when he acquired the tokens in November 2023. However, the former BitMEX chief did state that Solana could exceed the $100 price mark based on its current rally.

By dumping Solana for Ether, Hayes seems to be bucking the existing narrative. Solana has outperformed Ether amid the current renaissance in the crypto market. Solana’s spot price is up over 667% this year compared to Ether which has only managed 88.5%.

However, Hayes says Ether will reach $5,000 without giving a timeframe, eclipsing the coin’s previous peak of over $4,800 achieved back in November 2021. 

Ethereum v Solana: A tale of two blockchains

Price aside, the investment thesis for Ethereum and Solana has grown disparate in recent times, at least since the proliferation of attempts to make the former more scalable using layer-2 blockchains. Solana, meanwhile, has retained its monolithic structure of only one layer. 

The last two years have seen the emergence of several Ethereum layer-2 networks like Arbitrum and Optimism. Even centralized exchanges like Coinbase have launched their own layer-2 networks.

Ethereum and its array of layer-2 networks have become a sprawling DeFi scene that still outstrips all other competitors including Solana. 

Despite its recent renaissance, Solana’s total DeFi investments, a metric tracked by total value locked (TVL), is only $1.35 billion, according to DefiLlama data. For comparison, Arbitrum, an Ethereum layer-2 has a TVL of $2.4 billion.

Solana with its monolithic structure and Ethereum’s array of layer-2 networks is not the only path being taken in the blockchain development front. Modular blockchains like Celestia, with their interconnected components, are also another category.