Solana (SOL) briefly rallied near the $100 level during Sunday evening (at UTC zone) before scaling back to the $96 territory. The digital token surged more than 300% in the past year and over 2,700% in the last three years. Is there more to expect from the virtual asset once dubbed as the “Ethereum (ETH) killer?”
Solana Now
The past couple of hours have been a busy period for Solana as it journeyed from a low of $93.54 and a high of $99.38 based on the CoinMarketCap charts. As of 5:42 AM (UTC), the token currently sits at $96.74, showing a 0.21% increase from the previous day.
The same timeframe saw a jump of 59.77% in the trading volume of SOL as $2.35 billion worth of the digital asset moved between wallet addresses and crypto exchanges. Meanwhile, its volume/market cap, indicating its liquidity and ease of trading close to its prevailing value, is at 5.65%.
Solana’s loss of footing from its annual high of $121 has driven the valuation of its circulating supply back to $41.92 billion. This made SOL slip back to the fifth place of the crypto rankings by market cap where it is sandwiched between BNB and XRP at fourth and sixth, respectively.
SOL is still 62% down from its all-time high of $260 on November 7, 2021, but crypto analysts remain bullish on its potential for this year.
Can Solana Pay Challenge PayPal?
The Motley Fool thinks the key growth of the SOL ecosystem will be heavily influenced by Solana Pay. This disruptor in the digital payments industry presents a better alternative for consumers and merchants with its instant settlement times and near-zero charges, thanks to its lack of intermediaries and the transactions occurring on the blockchain.
According to the financial services company, Solana Pay can process up to 50,000 transactions per second (TPS). For the record, the payments network of Visa has 65,000 TPS.
The most recent milestone of Solana’s payments portal was its integration with Shopify. This new feature of the eCommerce platform presents users with an innovative alternative in the settlement of their transactions without burdening them with fees.
Solana Pay, however, may not have what it takes to directly compete with PayPal. At least for now.
PayPal is now gearing up to generate $4.6 billion in free cash flow. Based on its third quarter of 2023 report, it already has 428 million active accounts and 35 million partner merchants. It is also operating in 200 countries with a $1.6 trillion volume of payments processed during that span.
Given these numbers, Solana Pay needs a great deal of work to be at par with PayPal. Nonetheless, the prospects of the Solana portal getting a significant slice of that market would definitely drive its greater adoption while taking its token’s valuation big time.