Nobody can say that 2022 was a stellar year for Solana, and it certainly did not prove to be an “Ethereum killer.” Solana had multiple issues throughout the year and was unstable when used heavily. Every time there was a network outage, the SOL price fluctuated, and users criticized it for its centralization. The coin reportedly lost 94% of its value in 2022.
While other so-called altcoins have suffered steep declines this year, Solana has been pummeled by the bankruptcies of Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX and his hedge fund Alameda Research, which had backed the token.
FTX’s balance sheet indicated substantial SOL tokens valued at $982 million. At the time of the collapse, the exchange had $8.9 billion in liabilities. As of 11/14/22, the Solana Foundation had exposure to assets connected to FTX/ Alameda. Legislators are determining what will happen to these assets during bankruptcy proceedings.
In a shocking turn of events, big Solana NFT projects are now abandoning the blockchain for alternatives. The SOL blockchain has had its fair share of downtime, but it has still proven to be a game changer in terms of high scalability, fast speed, and low costs. Boxing day 2022, the DeGods NFT art collection cut ties with Solana for Ethereum.
During the bull market of 2022, an anon launched the Sunny DeFi application on the Solana blockchain. Within two weeks, billions of dollars were flowing into this yield farm. Ian Macalinao, the anon behind the application, worked as the single brain behind 11 purportedly independent developers. At its peak, the project constituted 75% of Solana’s $10.5 billion
SOL’s price has surged 114% so far this year, slowly recovering from losses from early November. TradingView predicts that SOL will retrace to a $22 area before the next pump to a $27/$28.3 area, then a big crash, 1st target $18 area. A big fall to the $5 area in the mid-term is where a new bullish long-term trend will start
With a good potential, it is not farfetched for Solana to reach $5,000, a 10,000% increase in the next eight years. While some might find this increase unrealistic, consider that it rose more than 8,500% by January 2022 to an all-time high of $260. Solana’s sharp price increase in that time shows that anything is possible.
Looking ahead, the current bull run witnessed in the entire crypto market will likely boost the Solana ecosystem. Technical analysts have predicted that the token will soon break through the $30 resistance level and could potentially test new highs.
Despite the short-term bearishness in Solana, there is still much optimism about its long-term prospects. The fundamentals behind SOL are strong, with a healthy network of users and developers that are actively supporting it. Similarly, the liquidity on exchanges has also been steadily increasing, indicating solid investor confidence.