Real Vision’s chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts is saying that a top Ethereum (ETH) competitor may be on the verge of a massive breakout.
Coutts says that the number of active Solana (SOL) addresses has soared by triple digits in percentage terms in the last three months, far more than other smart contract platforms.
He believes that SOL’s recent price correction combined with the network’s metrics make it poised for a big move to the upside.
“Solana: active addresses exploded by 276%, yet fees dropped 11.3%. Price looks like a coiled spring, primed for a breakout.”
He also shares metrics on other smart contract platforms (SCPs) from the same time period:
“On-chain activity update for major SCP networks:
- Ethereum: fees have likely hit a cycle low, surging 77%, while price momentum remains weak -21.9%.
- TON: active addresses +208%, fees +103%, but price growth (+26.1%) feels muted due to Telegram’s CEO fallout – likely overdone.
- SUI: fees jumped +236%, addresses up +74.9%. Increased monetary velocity points to healthy network growth. (Aptos is also showing modest gains.)
- TRON: crushing it in stablecoin transfers, with fees up 30.4% to $6.39 million/day across 2.1 million active addresses. Strong momentum, nearing all-time highs (ATHs).
- NEAR: Growth slowed with slight declines but holds the number two spot in active addresses (3 million+).
On-chain metrics use a 14-day rolling average.”
Solana is trading for $145.33 at time of writing, up more than 4% in the last 24 hours.
Coutts also highlights that payments giant Stripe announced global support for USDC settlements over the Ethereum (ETH), Polygon (POL) and Solana blockchains.
He believes payment advancements in crypto are bullish for layer-1s like Solana.
“One of the largest payment companies in the world rejoins the fray after a six-year hiatus. Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Stripe are making their bets on crypto. The only question for investors is whether blockchain rails will be used more or less in the future. Except store of value Bitcoin, most other use cases – decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePin), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), etc. – are still attempting to find PMF (product market fit).
However, there is no ambiguity about stablecoins and their utility for payments and decentralized finance (DeFi). If everything else fails, this will be enough to underwrite the network value of layer-1s (L1s) that have achieved initial network effects and some that are on their way. The question, as always, is the appropriate position size.”
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