This Layer-1 Blockchain ‘Bridges the Gap’ with Ethereum
- ETH price at time of writing – $1,624.73
- Solana is making moves to shake off Ethereum’s dominance
- Ethereum still dominates about 80% of the secondary NFT market
A layer-1 blockchain is gaining ground on Ethereum (ETH) in the non-fungible tokens (NFT) sector, according to new data from crypto analytics firm Messari. A Messari report states that in terms of secondary sales volume, Solana (SOL) is second only to smart contract platform Ethereum in the NFT industry.
But Solana is taking steps to challenge Ethereum’s dominance in the third quarter. Solana’s strategy and position in the NFT sector is still strong despite the bear market. Solana closes the gap on Ethereum, making it the second largest network in terms of secondary sales volume.
SOL price at time of writing – $33.07
Solana is closing the gap in terms of sales volume, despite Ethereum still controlling roughly 80% of the secondary NFT market. During the quarter, Ethereum’s dominance fell from 85% on average to 80%. Solana’s share increased to just under 20% from under 10% on average.
According to the report, Solana’s overall usage had declined and remained stable in the third quarter as the NFT ecosystem expanded.
Unlike Solana’s slowing and stabilizing DeFi sector, the NFT ecosystem continued to expand. Over 8 million new NFTs were created every day, representing a 19.3% quarter-on-quarter increase. To put this into perspective, this growth has continued after rising 46.4% in the second quarter and is about 8.5 times higher than the year-ago level.
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What sets Solana apart?
The Proof-of-History (PoH) consensus that Anatoly Yakovenko developed is one of the essential innovations that Solana brings to the table. The scalability of the protocol is improved by this idea, which also improves the usability.
Due to the extremely short processing times offered by the blockchain, Solana is well known in the cryptocurrency industry. With Solana’s hybrid protocol, the validation times for transactions and smart contract execution can be significantly reduced. Solana has also attracted a lot of interest from institutions due to its lightning-fast processing times.
The Solana protocol is designed to meet the needs of both small and large businesses. One of Solana’s main promises to customers is that they will not be caught off guard by increasing taxes and duties. The protocol’s design ensures both scalability and fast processing while maintaining low transaction costs.
Solana is ranked #7 on the CoinMarketCap list as of September 2021 due to the long history of professional experience that the project’s creators, Anatoly Yakovenko and Greg Fitzgerald, bring to the table.
This happened after an impressive bull run, in which the price of Solana increased by more than 700% since mid-July 2021.
The introduction of the Degenerate Ape NFT collection caused the SOL price to reach an all-time high (ATH) of more than $60, and it has since continued to rise as a result of increased developer activity in the Solana ecosystem, increased institutional interest, the expanding DeFi ecosystem, emergence of NFTs and gaming vertical at Solana and other factors.
The price of Solana reached an ATH of $216 on September 9, 2021. Solana has received a lot of praise for how fast it works and how quickly it works. It has even been said that it could compete with Ethereum and challenge the most popular smart contract platform.
However, the network has been plagued by frequent outages, which has lowered its price and hindered its ambitions to become the “Visa of crypto.” In addition, it is alleged that the ecosystem favors venture capital investors through unfair tokenomics.
