TL;DR
One of the best-performing crypto assets this year – Solana (SOL) – has experienced severe volatility in the past week. Its price exploded to almost $125 (per CoinGecko’s data) on December 25 (the highest level recorded since April 2022), whereas its market capitalization exceeded the $50 billion mark.
SOL became the fourth-largest crypto asset, outpacing Binance Coin (BNB). However, the latter restored its previous position following an impressive (yet brief) rally above $330.
According to some on-chain metrics, SOL might be on the verge of another upswing. Total value locked (TVL) on the network has surged to almost $1.5 billion in the past few days, while trading volume has stood well above $1 billion since mid-December.
Solana has also been quite successful in the non-fungible token field, with NFT sales volume for the last week hitting almost $75 million. In contrast, Ethereum’s figure currently stands at around $72 million.
Another digital asset that has captured the attention of crypto participants in 2023 is Ripple’s native token – XRP. Despite currently trading far below its yearly peak of over $0.80 (observed in July), it remains a subject of bullish predictions.
Earlier this week, the X (Twitter) user EGRAG CRYPTO suggested that XRP could reach $1.20 by the end of March next year. It is worth noting that such a potential price increase could almost coincide with the Bitcoin halving (scheduled for April 2024).
Cutting the reward for miners in half would decrease the supply of BTC and possibly boost its price, provided the demand remains the same or increases. BTC’s exponential surges have positively affected altcoins numerous times in the past, meaning XRP might benefit from the upcoming event.
The analyst using the X handle Dark Defender has also envisioned a bright future, forecasting a jump to $1.88 and then to $5.85, expecting the all-time high (ATH) target to be reached in the second quarter of 2024.
Those willing to dive deeper and check how XRP might finish the ongoing year could take a look at our dedicated video below:
Shiba Inu’s layer-2 blockchain solution – Shibarium – has also made the headlines recently. As CryptoPotato reported, total transactions on the network surpassed 200 million on December 27. The figure continued rising in the following days, currently standing at approximately 216 million.
Shibarium’s role is primarily centered around enhancing the functionality and scalability of the Shiba Inu ecosystem. It aims to speed up transaction processing times and lower fees. If you’re curious to find out more about the feature, feel free to take a look at our clip:
