Solana (SOL) has seized the spotlight as the leading blockchain of the year, commanding nearly half of global crypto investor attention in chain-specific narratives, according to CoinGecko.

This dominance is fueled by SOL’s resurgence to 2021 highs, buoyed by the strong performance of key project tokens such as Pyth and meme coins like Dogwifhat (WIF).

WIF, introduced during a surge in enthusiasm for meme coins on Solana, rode the wave of interest sparked by successes like BONK. This strategic timing, combined with bullish market sentiments, propelled WIF to recent popularity.

CoinGecko’s statistics published Wednesday further showed that Ethereum trailed behind Solana with a global traffic share of 12.73%, while BNB Chain followed at 5.38%.

Institutional Investors Flock to Second-Largest Altcoin

According to CoinShares, Solana ranks as the second-largest altcoin by assets held in funds, trailing only behind Ethereum. This indicates substantial demand from institutional investors and whales.

As the market continues to expand, this trend is expected to strengthen, especially with the anticipated Bitcoin halving and potential rate cuts, which could fuel a prolonged bull market.

Moreover, Solana has experienced significant growth in recent months. It has notably become a favored platform for NFTs and meme coins.

Solana Developer Ecosystem Thrives

CoinDCX co-founder Neeraj Khandelwal said the Solana developer ecosystem has seen significant progress in various aspects throughout 2023.

This includes advancements in tooling, improved developer experience, enhanced content quality, and a wider range of available programming languages. The ecosystem now has over 2500 monthly active developers contributing to open-source repositories.

“Secondly, investor activity has been notably increasing in anticipation of a bull run. Solana has experienced significant growth, with decentralized exchanges (DEXs) witnessing remarkable increases in trading volume,” Khandelwal said.

DefiLlama reports significant spikes in trading volume within Solana’s DeFi sector, seen particularly between March 3 and March 6.

“Moreover, investors have been locking substantial amounts of SOL into staking contracts, surpassing a total value of $42b,” he said.

Solana Expected to Reach $250 This Year

Solana traded at around $208 at the start of the week, marking its first rise above $200 in two years. Notably, the coin has surged by 75% since the start of the year and has jumped over 700% in the past 12 months.

Considering this momentum and Solana’s strong fundamentals, experts anticipate its price to soar to $250 by the summer.

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