Solana (SOL) now sits comfortably in the top five cryptocurrencies by market cap after surpassing XRP by a wide margin. There’s word that the Hong Kong Virtual Asset Consortium (HKVAC) is about to drop Ripple’s native coin in favor of the former in its Top Five Large Cryptocurrency Index.
Solana Takes HKVAC’s Top 5
HKVAC will be rebalancing its crypto index effective on January 19th. From there on, SOL will be taking over the number five rank as XRP takes the fall to the sixth.
As indicated in the name of the prestigious listing, the inclusion of cryptos in the HKVAC Cryptocurrency Global Large Market Cap Index is primarily based on their market capitalization. Additional criteria include market valuation, investability, and liquidity.
Last month, Solana dislodged not only XRP but also BNB in one fell swoop during the Santa Claus rally, which enabled it to capture the fourth spot of the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap. However, the recent dip of SOL below the $90 territory allowed BNB to retake its throne.
During the month, we have seen SOL climb from a low of $67 to a high of $125. That’s a 53.6% difference on the monthly chart. But then again, as of 5:00 PM (UTC) on Sunday, the digital asset is playing between a dip of $91 and a peak of $102 on the 24-hour chart.
As Solana looks to find back its support at the $100 range, its market cap is around $43.75 billion. This puts it around $3 billion behind BNB in the hierarchy.
Solana in 2024
A bright future seems to await Solana for this bull run. The optimism of the consensus in the asset is driven by its healthy economy with nearly $1.4 billion total value locked (TVL) as of press time.
The Solana Foundation said that 2023 was all about building foundations. Meanwhile, 2024 is viewed as a time when everything comes to fruition.
The Solana ecosystem now boasts 2,500 developers, wherein 52.5% of them have three years of experience in the industry. Based on Messari’s Q4 2023 report on SOL, the network has exhibited an average of 40.7 million daily user transactions with the highest daily transaction logged at 405,000 unique fee payers. The “low and predictable costs” of the platform “helped drive payment efficiencies” according to Visa.
The Foundation is gearing up for the rollout of its “token extensions” in the early part of the year. Solana says this new feature will make token creation more flexible without the dependency on third-party tools and without compromising security or scalability.
Token extensions will make it easier, especially for large institutions, to issue stablecoins with various monetization options. Likewise, its integration of metadata pointer eases up payment reconciliation. Moreover, token transfers can be accomplished using NFTs or loyalty cards via permanent delegation. Last but not least, these allow the masking of account balances and transfers as far as existing regulations permit.