Bitcoin Analyst Who Nailed Price In 2023 Says Solana Could Hit $500

Solana could very well hit a new all-time high in 2024, according to one of the most accurate crypto analysts in the space.

Fundstrat’s Head of Digital Asset Strategy Sean Farrell revealed his Solana prediction in an exclusive interview with Coinage – saying the Ethereum challenger could surpass $500 a token this year. After Farrell nailed his $44,000 price call in 2023, Coinage is highlighting his new research in an exclusive for our members.

“I think there's just a whole new cohort of users that have been introduced to crypto via the Solana network,” Farrell said in the interview that’s available to Coinage members above. “It's a smart contract platform, but they're building in a completely different model than some other [blockchains.]”

As Coinage has previously documented with Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana has made notable improvements to its network over the last two years. The chain was once hindered by more frequent network outages, but continued improvements have now mitigated those substantially. Those technical improvements, along with a surging community of builders carried over from last year should continue Solana’s momentum to new heights in 2024, according to Farrell. 

Lingering 60% below its all-time high of $260 in 2021, Solana has a long climb ahead of itself before reaching Fundstrat’s lofty estimate. Still, the coin’s price has more than tripled over the past year, rising 320% from $21 to about $100 as of this writing, according to CoinMarketCap. As it stands, Solana’s $40 billion market capitalization represents 2.5% of the overall crypto market, compared to 47% and 17% for Bitcoin and Ethereum, respectively.

“There's this jockeying for ‘The Third Best’ within the crypto industry and, to us, we see Solana as filling that hole and becoming that third asset in the traditional and the standard crypto portfolio,” Farrell predicted, adding that on-chain evidence of that is already stacking up if you pay attention to stablecoin flows.

In 2023, payment giants like Visa and USDC issuer Circle signaled an intent to focus efforts on Solana, which has long promised “settlement at the speed of light.” Yakovenko called those deals out as critical reasons to be bullish on Solana in 2024 in his last interview with Coinage to wrap up the year.

“I think it does signal that [Visa] did all the research and figured out that Solana actually fits their infrastructure and can deliver cheap and fast payments reliably,” he said. “That's awesome to see. Me, as an engineer, I'm very proud of that.”

Farrell predicts stablecoins on Tron might be the first victim of Solana’s rise. Outside of the U.S., many international crypto users have tapped stablecoins on Tron to build out apps, but stablecoin activity on Solana is already beginning to challenge that narrative.

“I think we'll see a move towards having USDC on Solana eat into some of that market share in terms of… this payment rail and store of value in these communities,” Farrell said.

As far as other short-term catalysts are concerned for Solana, Farrell’s latest research highlighted upcoming airdrops in the ecosystem. Jupiter, the popular decentralized exchange built on Solana is already planning its own airdrop on January 31.

“As we have seen in Solana’s recent runup, airdrops can often offer a boost to the price of the underlying chain due to the wealth effect created by the airdrop (users sell their airdrop for SOL). They also often lead to an overall increase in attention and on-chain activity,” Farrell wrote.

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