The third quarter of the 12 months was each thrilling and nerve-wracking for many within the crypto-community. And, whereas each Bitcoin and Ethereum noticed constructive quarters, the large winners have been truly newer protocols. In reality, a big surge in good contract platforms outpacing the bigger market was noticeable with the rise of initiatives similar to Solana, Avalanche, and Terra. All the aforementioned gained by at the least 300% on the charts.
Regardless that the Ethereum community had a burst of recent consumer adoption, principally because of the speedy rise of NFTs, it additionally suffered from report excessive transaction charges all year long. This, together with a complete of $1.96 billion in charges in Q3 alone.
This benefited aggressive good contract platforms and so-called ‘Ethereum-killers’ like Solana and Avalanche as customers looked for low-fee options to Ethereum.
Notably, SOL’s value surged by near $200 in early September as ETH’s imply transaction price topped $55.
With SOL’s value and ETH’s imply transaction price seeing coinciding tops, speculations of SOL’s rally being pushed by Ethereum have been in place. So, was this all there was to SOL’s progress?
Extra natural than it appears
The August-September rally was referred to as “Solana Summer season” by many out there as the value of the alt hit $200 per token. This, from a modest $2 at the start of the 12 months. Nonetheless, quickly after, the asset noticed appreciable consolidation following its ATH of $215 as pessimism took over. This solely fueled speculations of SOL’s rally being precipitated by ETH.
Solana’s rally, nevertheless, was far more natural than it appeared. Notably, Solana’s DeFi initiatives crossed over $3 billion in September this 12 months. The sheer rise within the variety of initiatives for SOL proved that it’s able to giving robust competitors to ETH and different ETH-killers.
Solana additionally used the explosion of NFTs to drive its progress as an interoperable blockchain platform. In reality, NFTs on SOL hit a $1 billion market cap on 2 October.
Moreover, whereas SOL’s spot market noticed low commerce volumes and lower cost anticipation, the Futures market offered a brighter outlook. The Open Curiosity for the altcoin noticed an uptick during the last couple of days, one indicating an increase within the variety of excellent contracts held by market contributors.
The identical additionally underlined the truth that new capital has been flowing into the coin’s markets.

SOL Open Curiosity | Source: Coinalyze
Getting dangerous, however hanging in there
Solana’s market has been quite unresponsive of late, however over the next timeframe, the altcoin clung on to the upper $164 resistance. Additional, constructive information like Ubeswap asserting a collaboration with Allbridge to deliver each Solana’s native asset ‘SOL’ and Saber’s governance token ‘SBR’ to Celo gave the alt the mandatory social pump. No matter the contained costs.
Nonetheless, at press time, SOL’s Sharpe ratio had entered the adverse territory, reaching July ranges whereas volatility additionally noticed a dip. The autumn within the alt’s Sharpe ratio appeared indicative of the truth that SOL’s efficiency had gotten riskier when in comparison with a “risk-free” asset over a window of time.
Regardless that a value pump might reverse this injury on the time of writing, it appears unlikely that SOL would have a sustained rally within the close to future.
Nonetheless, Solana’s progress has been too huge to disregard. What’s extra, the seventh-ranked crypto has held its rank on the charts, regardless of its consolidating costs. Whereas each day and weekly good points of “simply” 2.89% and 10.10%, respectively, it might make a stronger comeback when altcoins actually rally.