Solana volume leapfrogs Ethereum as memecoin frenzy seen sending price to $415

One analyst predicts Solana will reach a record $1,000 price after another memecoin frenzy pushed its weekend trading volumes higher than those of rival cryptocurrency Ethereum.

Solana generated over $6.3 billion in total trading volume on March 16 and 17 compared to Ethereum’s $4.4 billion, according to DefiLlama.

“Solana has effectively become the ‘people’s coin,’” with the potential to reach $415, and even as high as $1,000, Pav Hundal, lead market analyst at crypto exchange Swyftx, told DL News.

A similar rally on March 3 saw higher trading volume on Solana than on Ethereum.

The cryptocurrency achieved an all-time high of $260 in November 2021.

Memecoins are cryptocurrencies inspired by internet jokes or memes.

They often become popular quickly due to social media and celebrity endorsements.

The expectations around Solana is another sign the bull market is gathering momentum.

Even so, the Solana network is still haunted by repeated outages while Ethereum’s recent Dencun upgrade is expected to make the rival digital asset much cheaper to use.

This development could become a drag on Solana and prevent it from overtaking Ethereum.

Memecoin frenzy

Solana-based memecoins like dogwifhat, and Ethereum’s “very high gas fees” have catapulted activity to higher levels, Hundal said.

“The market is raining down liquidity on Solana at the moment,” Hundal said. “Ethereum has been brought to heel by its own gas fees and that this, in turn, [is] pushing users into the Solana ecosystem.”

Dex Screener, an analytics platform monitoring trading on decentralised exchanges, showed that the top five memecoins by volume in the last 24 hours on Solana were SLERF, SNAP, BOOK OF MEME, NOSTALGIA, and dogwifhat.

Solana is up 103% from January 1 and is trading at $208 on Monday morning, London time.

The surge has driven Solana past Binance’s BNB token to becoming the fourth biggest cryptocurrency by total value, CoinGecko data shows.

However, its total market value of $89 billion still trails the total values of Tether, Ethereum and Bitcoin, which clock are $103 billion, $430 billion and $1.3 trillion respectively.

Sebastian Sinclair is a markets correspondent for DL News. Have a tip? Contact Seb at sebastian@dlnews.com.