• Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), is bullish on Solana and confident that it will recover.
• Solana is a smart contracting platform that had massive exposure to Alameda Research, a trading firm associated with the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
• Following the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research, SOL, the native token of Solana, has fallen to a multi-month lows as critics expect further losses in the days ahead.
Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), recently expressed his confidence in Solana, a smart contracting platform. Buterin believes that the platform has a bright future because the bear market has washed away the opportunistic money people and the earnest smart developer community now has the opportunity to build.
Solana had massive exposure to Alameda Research, a trading firm associated with the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX. During the last bull cycle of 2020 to 2021, the platform was touted as the “Ethereum Killer,” due to its scalability, and attracted a fair amount of attention.
However, after on-chain activity rapidly shrunk in 2022, the platform has not been able to live up to its expectations. The native token of Solana, SOL, has fallen to a multi-month low as the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research has led to further losses. Developers and projects have since migrated to competing networks, such as Ethereum and Polygon.
Shortly after the unexpected events in early November, SOL prices crashed to new lows, trading below $10 – a 93 percent drop from its 2021 peak. After Vitalik posted his support for Solana, the coin recovered slightly, reaching $9.50. Trackers reveal that since then, SOL has been trading within a tight range between $8.50 and $10.
The future of Solana remains uncertain, but Vitalik’s optimism is certainly a ray of hope for the platform. Buterin believes that the platform has the potential to thrive, and he is confident that the earnest smart developer community can make it happen. With the market finally calming down, it will be interesting to see how Solana will fare in the months ahead.