Solana soars to $98 as Saga phone sells out

Many analysts have been asking, “Can Solana reach $100 before the New Year?”. As I stated a month ago, I think that Solana will surely be the Ethereum of 2024. $100 will just be a pit stop on the path to the moon as it continues to garner developers and investors from retail and institutions alike. 

So much inflows have occurred since October into the Solana ecosystem thanks to its thriving ecosystem, recent upgrades to its security usability and decentralization, insane gains from its meme coins, popular games running atop of its blockchain, and of course its Saga phone. 

I covered Solana’s Saga phone back when it was released in May and was impressed with its capabilities from a hardware and a software standpoint. The Saga boasts an impressive 12 GB of ram (more than the iPhone 15 or Galaxy A25), with a similar screen size and refresh rate of 120hz matching or beating the big phone makers, all in a stainless-steel frame with titanium ascents (unlike the lighter aluminum of the competition). But the real gem of its hardware components is the separate processor for its crypto wallet. The crypto wallet is held separate from its main octa-core processor, making it a safe and convenient cold storage device that is easy to use compared to some hard wallets. The Solana Foundation just announced that it had sold out of its phones, and this is after they raised their price from $599 to $999. 

One of the biggest drivers of demand for this first ever crypto phone recently has been the Bonk airdrop, which is only available to Saga owners. Bonk has risen by over 400% in the past month to become the 56th largest crypto by market cap. 

It was with the help of coins like Bonk that Solana was able to grow at such an accelerated pace. That rapid growth has just recently put Solana in the number 5 position for market cap in all cryptocurrencies, beating out Ripple (XRP). When you remove Tether (USDT) a stable coin from the list Solana moves up to number 4 and the place of 3rd which is held by Binance’s BNB. 

However, I am predicting that Solana will exceed BNB by the end of the year. Currently, Solana’s market cap is only about $1 billion below that of BNB, and that number is dwindling as we speak. So, by next year, Solana will likely start out as the third-largest true cryptocurrency across the globe. 

Currently, SOL’s market dominance has experienced explosive growth of 25% in the past week, but even with this amazing advance in market stake it still holds only 2.5% of the total cryptocurrency market share. And while this is still well below Ethereum’s total capitalization of $268 billion, The pace at which Solana is expanding is nearly as fast as transactions are on its own blockchain. 

 Approximately one hour ago 5:45 PM, EST SOL reached a high of $98.24! Above the $95 intraday high when I began writing this article. That equates to a gain of  $11.63 (14.14%) for December 21st and the newly born candle for the 22nd of Dec. is posting an additional $0.63 (0.5%) gain already. It is undeniable at this point “'Tis The Season of Solana.”