Summary:

• Solana’s upgrade may challenge Ethereum’s Layer-1 dominance, attracting developers to participate at a lower cost.

• Solana still retains over 50% of its developers, indicating its growing popularity and increasing competition with Ethereum.

• Despite its potential, Solana faces several challenges, including network stability and a significant market cap gap with Ethereum.

Solana’s recent upgrades aimed at boosting transaction processing capabilities, coupled with buzz around potential breakthrough consumer applications, will challenge Ethereum’s supremacy.

This development has aroused great interest among blockchain enthusiasts. It marks a potentially transformative phase for Solana, often referred to as the “Ethereum killer.”

**Can Solana surpass Ethereum? **

According to Solana’s 2023 Developer Report, the platform has 2,500 to 3,000 active developers per month. It retained more than 50% of its developers compared to the previous year. This statistic is crucial and reflects the platform’s growing appeal and competitiveness with Ethereum.

Additionally, the increase in developer activity on Solana has been attributed to improved onboarding processes and increased development opportunities.

Austin Federa, head of strategy at the Solana Foundation, emphasized the platform’s unique appeal to developers.

Many developers are switching from Ethereum to Solana, attracted by the multiple programming languages supported by Solana (including Rust, C and Python), as well as the upcoming Move language and lower development costs.

As a result, the fragmentation of the Ethereum Rollup ecosystem complicates the development landscape, while Solana’s unified chain approach may appeal to developers looking to simplify their environment. Federa's confidence that Solana will host many new consumer-facing applications underscores this advantage.

Speculation that Solana could launch a highly successful app in areas such as SocialFi, DePIN or gaming highlights its potential. Such activity could significantly increase Solana’s user base and investment inflows.

Still, Solana faces reliability challenges, including network outages that impact its reputation.

Firedancer is a new validator client designed to resolve these stability issues. The ability to process 600,000 transactions per second in tests could significantly improve Solana's infrastructure.

Ethereum vs Solana Market Cap | Source: TradingView

However, current market capitalization data shows a significant gap between Ethereum and Solana. With its vast ecosystem and a huge gap of $417 billion, Ethereum’s market capitalization far exceeds Solana’s $57 billion.

This disparity highlights the challenges Solana faces in becoming an Ethereum killer. Despite these challenges, technological advancements and changing developer preferences can change competitive dynamics.