SOL records a 600% annual rally, becomes 5th largest cryptocurrency

Solana (SOL) has become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency following the recent market-wide rally. 

SOL emerged as the top gainer among the leading 100 cryptocurrencies in the past 24 hours with a 14.4% surge. The asset is trading at a 20-month-high of $86.4 at the time of writing.

Solana’s market cap surged to $36.95 billion, flipping Ripple’s XRP to become the fifth-largest digital currency. SOL’s daily trading volume also recorded a 120% rally, surpassing the $4.2 billion mark. 

Since the market’s bottom in December 2022, Solana has recorded a 618% surge. Of particular note is that the SOL mark cap dropped to as low as $3.5 billion in mid-December, making it the 16th-largest crypto, then falling behind Shiba Inu’s (SHIB) $4.4 billion market cap and XRP, which then had a total market value of roughly $17.5 billion.

One of the main drivers of the SOL price rally, analysts speculate, is the arrival of the first memecoin on the Solana network, BONK. Following BONK’s impressive gains, Solana-based meme coins gained traction and more tokens have been added to the layer-1 blockchain.

Another key driver could be the massive sale of the Solana Sage smartphones. Solana Mobile officially announced on Dec. 15 that Saga phone owners could claim an airdrop of 30 million BONK coins. 

However, popular tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) gave the “worst smartphone of 2023” award to Solana’s first-ever web3-focused phone. 

According to a post by Santiment, Solana has become one of the top trending cryptocurrencies, along with Stacks (STX) and NEAR. 

The surge of the three mentioned tokens could be the “mainstream” conversations around the asset on social media platforms. Santiment claims that investors should take a “cautious approach” since the fear of missing out, or FOMO, could potentially create price tops.