Key Takeaways:
- Solana experienced a historic surge in transaction volume, surpassing Ethereum with $3.79 billion on March 15, driven by the popularity of memecoins like “Book of Meme” and “SNAP.”
- Network congestion led to about half of all transactions failing during peak times, highlighting scalability challenges amidst the memecoin trading frenzy.
- Solana’s market cap reached a new all-time high of $88.5 billion, driven by the value surge of its native cryptocurrency, SOL, amid the memecoin craze.
Crypto enthusiasts have recently flocked to Solana-based memecoins like “Book of Meme” and “SNAP,” pushing the network to its limits amidst a sudden spike in transactions.
Over the recent weekend, the Solana blockchain saw an unprecedented surge in activity, surpassing Ethereum’s transaction volume as traders scrambled to get their hands on these trending memecoins.
This rush resulted in a historic trading volume of $3.79 billion for Solana on March 15, overtaking Ethereum by a significant $1.1 billion margin, according to data from DefiLlama.
This surge was not without its challenges; the network experienced considerable strain, leading to widespread reports from users about transactions failing or not processing correctly.
Insights from Solana Validator indicated network congestion was at its peak, with ping times ranging from 20 to 40 seconds around 8 pm UTC on March 16, causing around half of all transactions to fail during a 20-minute period.
🚨#Solana is currently congested with an Average Ping Time of 20-40s, 30-50% Ping loss, up to 50-80% failed transactions. $SOL
— Dagnum P.I. (@Dagnum_PI) March 17, 2024
Solana's TPS isn't 50k due to vote transactions; it's just marketing. In reality, under full network conditions with 30-50s wait times, Solana maxes out… pic.twitter.com/NJJfZGDBgo
The excitement around new memecoins was a key driver behind this spike in Solana’s network usage. Specifically, the memecoin “Book of Meme” saw its market value skyrocket to $1.45 billion within just 56 hours of its launch on March 14. Another memecoin, “$NAP” (NAP), also captured traders’ attention, its market cap soaring from roughly $20 million to over $330 million in less than a day.
Amidst this frenzy, Solana’s native cryptocurrency, SOL, experienced a significant price rally. The value of SOL rose to $200, marking a 7.6% increase over the previous week and a 38.4% jump in the past month, as reported by CoinGecko.
This bullish momentum also helped Solana achieve a new all-time high in market capitalization, surpassing Binance’s BNB to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $88.5 billion.
The network’s total market cap has notably exceeded its previous high of $76.5 billion, reached in November 2021, buoyed by an increase in the total supply of Solana tokens. This has brought its current market valuation nearly $12 billion above its past peak, highlighting the significant impact of the memecoin craze on Solana’s ecosystem.
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Fleming Airunugba, a seasoned Web3 and crypto content expert, leverages his deep understanding of blockchain technology to bring the latest and most impactful news to the crypto community.
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