Solana 2024 Year-End Summary: The Journey of Counterattack

Original Title: The Year in Solana: A Comeback Story

Original author: Logan Hitchcock

Source of the original text:

Compiled by: Daisy, Mars Finance

Solana's Journey of Counterattack in the Past Year

As a decentralized network, Solana made significant progress in 2024, with not only a substantial increase in user activity, but also significant benefits for its native token SOL.

In an unforgettable journey of counterattack, Solana has emerged from the depths of the crypto winter of 2022 to become one of the blockchain platforms that is highly welcomed by cryptocurrency enthusiasts and retail beginners this year.

Chewing glass is in our DNA, we will get through this together. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko tweeted during the winter of 2022 on Twitter (now known as X platform).

Fast forward two years, driven by the rebound in risk appetite and the frenzy of meme coins, Solana experienced explosive growth in user base in 2024.

With the upcoming technological breakthroughs such as the software client Firedancer, Solana is ready to break the old narratives about its frequent crashes and technological disadvantages.

With its native token SOL soaring nearly 200% in the past year, Solana is now the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. With the gradual clarification of the regulatory environment and the market speculation driven by ETF-related events, Solana's supporters have more expectations for the future.

Before looking ahead, let's take a look back at Solana's performance in 2024.

Solana reshapes the foundation and breaks through historical highs

After the FTX crash at the end of 2022, the trading price of Solana dropped to just $8 at one point. However, the network has seen a remarkable recovery, with a gain of over 275% this year and briefly reaching a new all-time high.

Once considered a casualty of the crypto winter by some, Solana's recovery demonstrates the resilience of its ecosystem. Even Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, a rival, has publicly applauded it.

According to Syncracy's data over the past year, Solana has surpassed Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, in several key indicators, such as actual economic value, number of active addresses, and decentralized trading volume, despite its market value still being much lower than Ethereum.

Although its price has fallen 17% from the historical high of $263 set on November 23, the native token of the Solana network may gain wider adoption through traditional financial media as the possibility of a Solana ETF continues to increase.

Memecoins super cycle?

Meme coins are tokens associated with internet memes and popular cultural events, which experienced unprecedented growth in 2024, especially on Solana, leveraging cultural relevance and speculative frenzy.

Although meme coins are not a new phenomenon, iconic tokens like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) have now entered the top 15 in terms of market value and become darlings of the last cycle. The widespread emergence of new tokens on Solana has spurred a so-called "meme coin super cycle".

What is the catalyst for this cycle? Platforms like Pump.fun—a meme coin launching platform—greatly simplify the token creation process, allowing any user to create a new token with just a few clicks.

This ease of acquisition has led to the creation of over 4 million tokens since the platform's launch in January 2024.

While most tokens have no value right now, some have already generated significant gains for traders and even become the top 100 tokens by market capitalization, enough to attract attention and trade in the market.

Solana Legend

Solana's first smartphone, Solana Saga, initially received a lukewarm response among the loyal members of the Solana community, but experienced a revival by the end of 2023.

As users scrambled to get the soulbound tokens bound to their phones, the Solana Saga phone experienced a last-minute frenzy and eventually sold out.

With this momentum, Solana launched its second-generation smartphone, Seeker, in 2024. Seeker provides users with a cheaper alternative to Saga, while also featuring upgraded hardware.

The Seeker program is scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2025 and has received over 140,000 pre-orders, with device sales exceeding $65 million.

Solana's real-world connectivity extends beyond smartphones to include handheld gaming devices and a range of decentralized Public Infrastructure Network (DePIN) projects.

These projects attempt to redefine the infrastructure of the real world using decentralized networks and blockchain technology. According to some advocates, this could be a revolutionary transformation.

For example, Helium (a decentralized mobile network) and Teleport (a carpooling platform based on Solana technology) have seen significant growth in 2024. Helium's Mobile token (MOBILE) has increased by over 300% since the beginning of the year, highlighting the momentum in this area.

Technological improvements are coming.

Solana's technical foundation has experienced fluctuations due to issues such as blockchain downtime and failures. However, improvements to the infrastructure are forthcoming, most notably with the release of Solana Firedancer.

Led by crypto investment firm and infrastructure developer Jump Crypto, Firedancer was the highlight of Solana's recent Breakpoint conference in Singapore.

This innovative validator client is designed to optimize hardware utilization and eliminate software inefficiency, laying the foundation for improving Solana network performance.

Firedancer's early prototype, Freakdancer, launched on the Solana mainnet in September. According to its uptime page, there have been no reported downtime incidents as of now.

Institutions believe that Solana has matured

This year, active cryptocurrency participants have flocked to Solana, but global institutions are also paying close attention, including VanEck. Within just a year of Visa's detailed analysis of Solana's scalability, low-cost structure, and its suitability for payment scenarios, other financial giants have also joined the Solana ecosystem.

At the beginning of 2024, PayPal made headlines by enabling its PYUSD stablecoin on Solana, highlighting Solana's potential as digital payment infrastructure and emphasizing the "important benefits" unlocked for commercial applications on Solana with PYUSD.

Major financial institutions hope to include Solana's native token in the same mainstream investment channels as Bitcoin and Ethereum, providing broader access for mainstream financial participants.