Solana Price prediction 2023-2026

The Solana blockchain has been a well-known player in the crypto world since its launch in 2020. 2022 was a very difficult year for Solana. Not only did the coin fall sharply in value. It also lost ground on CoinMarketCap. The coin dropped from spot #9 to spot #16. What can we expect from Solana in 2023?

Table of Content

1. What is Solana?
2. What is SOL? 
3. Current Solana price
4. Who founded Solana?
5. What is the function of Solana crypto?
6. How does Solana's PoH mechanism work?
7. Staking of Solana crypto
8. Using SOL on the network
9. Solana crypto in the NFTs
10. Recent developments that impacted Solana 
11. Solana price history
12. Solana coin (SOL) price prediction 2022 
13. Solana price prediction 2023
14. Solana price forecast 2024-2026 
15. Conclusion

What is Solana?

Solana is crypto which its inventors refer as the blockchain of the new generation. The platform is known as a very fast network that can process up to 700,000 transactions per second. This makes Solana one of the fastest blockchains. The block time is also very fast on the Solana blockchain. The block time is the average time between the tracing of blocks. The blockchain is capable of tracing the next block within 400 milliseconds. Compared to Ethereum (every 10 seconds) and Bitcoin (every 10 minutes), this is extremely fast. Solana is therefore seen by many as a formidable competitor to Ethereum. In addition, at the time of writing Ethereum's transaction fees are hardly interesting for small transactions due to the high prices. At the time of writing, transaction fees for executing a  DeFi transaction are between $50 and $100 per transaction and executing an NFT transaction can be as high as $150 per transaction.

What is SOL? 

Solana's crypto coin is the SOL coin and represents the value of Solana. This coin has climbed into CoinMarketCap's top 10 since its development in 2020, but has since fallen to the 16th spot. On 6 November 2021, the coin managed to reach an all-time high of $260.06. The coin is used for staking and for paying transaction fees on the Solana blockchain.

Current Solana price

Who founded Solana?

Anatoly Yakovenko founded Solana in 2020. He developed the Solana blockchain together with a foundation from Switzerland. Yakovenko, together with his team of experienced developers, built a network capable of carrying out large volumes of transactions in a short period of time. This solved many of the overload problems that arose with Ethereum and Bitcoin, among others.

 

What is the function of Solana crypto?

As mentioned earlier, the speed of Solana is one of the strengths of the network. Also, carrying out transactions on the network is very cheap. For example, a transaction can be performed for less than one cent. They achieve this through Proof-of-History (PoH). PoH is similar to the Proof-of-Stake organism but adds the element of 'time'.

How does Solana's PoH mechanism work?

The Proof-of-Work mechanism makes it possible to record transactions from the past. This is done with the SHA256 hash function. The hash function takes the input of a transaction and produces a unique output. The network then uses this output as input for the next transaction. Doing it this way creates an unbroken chain of hashed transactions.  This determines a clear sequence of transactions that a validator adds to a block. The hashing takes a certain time to complete, which then ensures that validators can clearly analyse how much time has passed. Because each node gets its own cryptographic proof, nodes do not have to wait for other nodes. This allows transactions to be performed with very high frequency.

Staking of Solana crypto

Another reason the Solana blockchain is fast is because of the possibility of 'staking'. The tracking of new blocks is done by validators. They deploy their SOL tokens to the network by locking them in for a long period of time. This is called staking and as a reward for validating a block, you are paid out in Solana. The uniqueness of Solana is that 25 blocks are validated by 25 different validators simultaneously, allowing the network to process transactions quickly. You can already strike with just a small number of SOL coins. Being allowed to validate a block is made possible by the voting system. To be allowed to vote you pay approximately one Solana. Then a random decision is made as to who will be allowed to validate the block.

Using SOL on the network

You can also stake SOL without being a validator. We call this delegating. In delegating, you lend your SOL to an active validator. As a reward, you get a share of his earnings, also called inflation rewards. In addition, SOL is used to pay transaction fees, to fund sending transactions, but also to execute smart contracts such as dApps.

Solana crypto in the NFTs

The  NFT world is booming and there is a lot of hype around it. An NFT is a smart contract on the blockchain and can be used to register digital art on the blockchain. At the moment, Ethereum is the largest platform in terms of NFTs. However, the Solana network is also growing and with the  Solsea platform is well on its way to compete with Ethereum. Although the platform has some catching up to do, Solsea has a number of advantages over OpenSea (Ethereum platform):

• Transaction fees on Solsea are much lower (one cent versus sometimes more than $100);
• The Solsea network is a lot faster;
• The market is smaller and less well known, so NFTs are on average cheaper than on the Ethereum blockchain.

Recent developments that impacted Solana 

The restart of the Solana blockchain

A fast network that can handle an incredible amount of transactions. That is Solana's vision. Yet they did not succeed immediately. In September 2021, the network experienced an overload which rendered the system unusable for 16 hours. Validators were unable to validate transactions due to the overload. After a restart by node administrators, the network went back online.

The real reason for the overload is not clear. It is suggested that Solana was subject to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which caused many transactions to fail. It is also suggested that the launch of Solchicks (DEX) caused the overload.

Whatever the exact reason, the fact that node administrators are needed to reboot the network raises questions. Is the network really decentralised? That's a sensitive topic among the crypto community. And decentralisation is exactly what cryptotechnology stands for. On top of that, all tokens have been created by the owners of Solana, of which only 50% of the available tokens have been put into circulation.

Network outages on Solana's blockchain

In 2022, Solana's network went down at least nine times, causing the network to stop functioning. The last was on 1 June 2022, when the network was down for four and a half hours. Due to a runtime bug, transactions were not completed properly, causing the network to stop functioning.

An accumulation of problems that damaged the reliability of the platform. Still, analysts who make price predictions based on algorithms see a bright future for Solana.

The FTX crash and the bankruptcy of Alameda Research

The FTX crash and the bankruptcy of Alameda Research had a major impact on the Solana price. Together they had invested a lot of money during the 2021 investment round, which meant they owned a large number of SOL. The price fell from $30 to $10 in a few weeks due to a panic sale when it was announced that FTX was in trouble. On top of that, previously locked-in SOL were due to be released that period, further depressing the price. The Solana community could breathe a sigh of relief as a decision was made to postpone the release.

Solana price history

Solana's mainnet was launched in March 2020. From then on, SOL coin represented the value of Solana.

Solana price 2020

In 2020, the SOL coin was first valued at $1.20 per SOL coin during its launch. From the launch, Solana briefly faced a sell off from early investors. The Solana price reached its all-time low of $0.50 per SOL on 11 May 2020. This all-time low remains the low point of the SOL price today. For almost 3 months, the Solana price continued to move between $0.70 and $0.50 per SOL coin. At the end of spring on 1 September, Solana reached its all-time high of the year. A price of $4.74 was reached.

Solana price 2021

During the bullrun in 2021, Solana really started to gain a foothold and the coin managed to reach the top 10 in CoinMarketCap. This was the year Solana flourished, despite problems on the network. Investors remained confident in the network when the network went down in September. We then saw a short-term decline, but Solana then picked up its momentum again. The coin rose from a price of $28 at the end of July to a new all-time high of $260 per SOL coin on 6 November.

Solana price 2022

By the end of 2021, the bull run was over and the crypto market fell into a downtrend. Solana fell from its all-time high of $260 to $90 in two months at the end of January 2022. In 2022, many crypto providers faced liquidity problems. This caused Solana many problems. The much-discussed bankruptcy of Alameda Research and FTX had a major impact on Solana's ecosystem. After all, they were major investors of the platform and together invested a lot of money in Solana. As such, they own a lot of SOL. The news created a domino effect and caused the price of solana to fall sharply in a few weeks. Indeed, the coin dropped from $36 per SOL to below $10 per SOL. A drop of more than 95% from its all-time high in 2021.

Solana coin (SOL) price prediction 2022 

In 2021, Solana was one of the best performing coins in CoinMarketCap's top 100. In particular, the speed and low transaction costs had a positive effect on the price. However, the Solana blockchain has also experienced overloading. This has shown that the blockchain is not watertight and has also shown that you can question whether the network is decentralised. This is causing a split between believers and non-believers.

Analysts on YouTube have mixed feelings. By early 2022, the price has dropped below $100, causing analysts headaches. Analysts at YouTube calculate a drop to $30, while others expect Solana to reach its former ATH of $260 per SOL.

Based on proprietary algorithms, analysts from TradingBeasts, Digitalcoin and Gov Capital make price predictions for Solana. The price forecasts are often unrealistic. Do not take them too seriously, only use them to gather information about Solana. Digitalcoin, based on its own algorithm, expects SOL to reach a price of $54.98 by the end of 2022.  

TradingBeasts estimates almost the same price as Digitalcoin. They expect a Solana coin to be worth $53.02 by the end of 2022. Gov Capital's AI thinks Solana's value will increase significantly in the final months of 2022. In fact, they expect Solana to be worth $164.40.

Looking back at 2022

In early 2022, we shared the above Solana expectations in the blog. By then, the market was bearish and the companies that shared the Solana price expectations disagreed. Indeed, Solana's expectations were far apart. While Gov Capital expected a rise to over $164, TradingBeasts and Digitalcoin agreed that SOL would be worth less. A price of around $54 was expected. However, the crypto market faced many problems surrounding crypto providers, which caused an additional fall in Solana's price. In particular, the bankruptcies of FTX and Alameda Research caused SOL to fall deep below expectations, to below $10.

Solana price prediction 2023

Will the Solana price rise in 2023? The crypto market is also very uncertain in 2023. The bankruptcies of Genesis, FTX and Alameda research have created a domino effect that still causes a lot of turmoil and distrust within the sector. The question is therefore whether the market can turn bullish again. In early 2023, it does not look like that yet. In the aftermath of the FTX scandal, more and more companies are falling. On the other hand, this does not mean that Solana cannot rise as a result. The network has been in the corner where the blows fall before and it seems that things cannot get much worse for Solana. Of course, you can't guarantee this, because if Bitcoin continues to fall, chances are the rest will continue to follow.

So what could make the SOL price rise? The bad news does not immediately mean that the end of Solana is in sight. In fact, there is also good news and Solana continues to develop. There have therefore been plenty of developments that could make Solana more valuable tomorrow than it is today. In a previous blog, we discussed which developments could have a positive impact on SOL in the long term:

• The partnership with Google that allows Solana validator to run on Google Cloud.
• The Euro stablecoin (EUROC) will also start circulating on the Solana network in the future.
• Updates planned to make Solana even faster, more efficient and cheaper.

So plenty of positive Solana news! The price of Solana mainly depends on external factors such as the status of the market and developments as described above. TradingBeasts, Digitalcoin and Changelly have made predictions for 2023 on what Solana could be worth in 2023. Below are their Solana forecast for 2023:

Solana price forecast 2024-2026 

TradingBeasts, Digitalcoin and Changelly have also made predictions for 2024, 2025 and 2026 based on their algorithm:

Conclusion

Solana is a platform that many consider a good alternative to Bitcoin and Ethereum. The platform is faster and can conduct more transactions in a short period of time. The transaction costs are also a lot lower. From its launch in 2020, the SOL coin has done more than well and the price has climbed from just over $0.05 to an ATH of $260 per SOL. By early 2022, the price has dropped below $100 and analysts have 'mixed feelings' about the coin in 2022. In particular, the fact that the network went down several times caused many believers and non-believers. The non-believers in particular got it right in 2022. Not so much because the network was struggling with problems on the network, but because of external factors that greatly affected the SOL. The market was already bearish and on top of that came the FTX scandal that pushed the price down even further.

Still, this does not mean the end of Solana. Indeed, it is fully committed to developments and upgrades that improve the network. It is also partnering with companies like Google and Circle. What the price will do in 2023 is hard to predict. Still, the worst seems to be over for Solana, but even this is no guarantee.