Coinbase Predicts: Why Solana Could Bounce Back Even Better

• The scalability-focused network was one of the biggest casualties following last year’s unprecedented crypto winter.
• But even that has had little to no impact on the fundamentals of the self-proclaimed ‘‘Ethereum Killer.’’

In a Brian Cubellis report published by Coinbase Wednesday, not all is lost for the once promising ‘Ethereum Killer’ Solana, which lost popularity following the collapse of FTX, a myriad of macroeconomic factors, and endless bugs and network outages.

According to the report, which analyzed the technical aspects of Solana, the network portrays fundamentals and technical strengths in the level of transactions, users, and developer activity. These key aspects position the scalability protocol for a comeback.

Solana rose to popularity within its few years of existence, driven by the value proposition of scalability, powered by an augmented proof of stake consensus and the proof of history timestamp. According to the report, the result was one of the highest throughputs in the sector with up to 65,000 transactions per second.

Solana’s market sentiment different from the intact fundamentals

Coinbase noted that the technical aspects remain intact despite the negative perspective of the network among crypto enthusiasts. More importantly, the number of developers flocking the network to benefit from the relatively cheaper transaction costs and faster speeds is on another level. Per the lengthy report, compared to Ethereum (the second largest blockchain,) Solana is faring relatively well despite commanding a market capitalization equivalent to 4.3% of the former.

For instance, Solana’s daily active users currently stand at 155k, 43%, compared to Ethereum’s 344k. On the daily transactions processed by the two networks, Solana takes the lead at 17.7 million compared to Ethereum’s 1 million.

The rising developer activity

At the centre of Coinbase’s rosy prediction for Solana is the level of developer activity, which signifies the developers’ value in the network. From the GitHub data, Solana had 63 active developers as of the report’s publication, compared to Ethereum’s 133, with active meaning the number of developers who have committed code 5+ days of the month.

How Coinbase’s prediction matches Solana’s outlook moving forward remains to be seen. At press time, its native SOL token traded at $22.95, representing a price change of +1.78% in the past day and -8% in the last week.