Solana is off to a rocky start in 2024. While the cryptocurrency market has shown a positive trend over the past couple of days – largely on the back of optimism regarding exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – Solana’s price has taken a hit, falling to… Below $95 in the last 24 hours.
Solana is the native cryptocurrency of the layer-one Solana network that supports smart contracts and allows Web3 creators and users to create decentralized applications (dApps).
Whale movements around BTC and ETH are causing disruption
The decline in Solana prices comes amid a widespread sell-off in cryptocurrencies. Whales Deposited Millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum have been on the market on centralized exchanges over the past 24 hours, according to blockchain tracking site Whale Alert. This erratic behavior of whales has led to price fluctuations, with major digital assets declining.
In the last 24 hours, Solana (SOL) price has fallen by over 7%, falling to the current price of $94.01. It fell to a low of $92.08 earlier today, according to data from CoinGecko. Solana has underperformed the broader cryptocurrency market which is down approximately 1.5% as of writing.
Investors lose millions amid falling SOL prices
Solana investors extended their losses with today's decline, as the altcoin has fallen more than 7% in the past seven days. SOL is up 600% year to date – but is still 64% below its all-time high of $259.96 set in November 2021.
Solana's trading volume over the past 24 hours fell by approximately 17% to $2.8 billion, indicating waning retail interest in Solana. Currently the fifth largest cryptocurrency, Solana's market capitalization has fallen to $40.5 billion in the past 24 hours.
Stability issues
Solana is often called the “Ethereum Killer,” and its popularity has risen because it can manage transactions faster and cheaper. It also gained favor for its much smaller environmental impact before Ethereum moved to a proof-of-stake mechanism.
However, it still faces scaling issues, underscored by the significant outages that Solana's network suffered last year. The network's inability to process transactions completely offline is another sore point.
