Despite a substantial 120% surge in December and surpassing Binance’s BNB in market capitalization growth, Solana experienced a slight downturn in the days following Christmas.
During this retracement, Solana’s value slipped under $100 but managed to stabilize at slightly above $101 for a brief period. Currently, the coin is trading at $105, marking a 14% decrease from its yearly peak of $123 reached on December 26, as per TradingView data.
Conversely, the price of BNB unexpectedly rose by 9%, reclaiming its position as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Alongside Solana’s ascent, several SOL-based memecoins like Bonk (BONK) and Dogwifhat (WIF) also witnessed significant price surges between November 22 and December 22. During this period, Bonk surged by 650% while Dogwifhat skyrocketed by an astonishing 123,000%. However, both memecoins retraced over 50% from their peak values, coinciding with Solana’s dip from its yearly high.
Simultaneous to Solana's remarkable price surge, trading activity on the network soared, propelling the SOL-based decentralized exchange (DEX) to outpace Ethereum in trading volume for the first time. However, Solana DEX trading volume has subsided, dropping to $1.1 billion over the past 24 hours—approximately half of Ethereum’s $2 billion, according to DefiLlama.
Meanwhile, Ether, Ethereum's native cryptocurrency, recorded a 5% weekly gain, sparking speculation among traders and analysts that Ethereum might soon begin to outperform its competitors.
