It’s been an explosive month for SOL, the cryptocurrency that powers Solana’s high-performance layer-1 blockchain protocol. The cryptocurrency was last trading higher by about 145% on the month in the mid-$24.00s and is up an even more impressive more than 200% versus its end of December 2022 lows under $8.0 per token.
December was a dire month for Solana’s price as investors continued to dump the token on concerns that the collapse of potentially fraudulent cryptocurrency exchange FTX in November, a big supporter of the Solana ecosystem, would result in the “death” of the ecosystem and cryptocurrency.
But Solana has a decentralized ecosystem of supports and applications that, while struggling in wake of the collapse of FTX and withdrawal of all the liquidity it used to provide, continued to express support for the Solana project. Various metrics, as discussed in this recent article, suggested that activity within the Solana ecosystem remains robust in wake of the FTX collapse – far from an ecosystem that is dying.
This, alongside the broader cryptocurrency market rally in January as a result of a combination of macro tailwinds and optimism that the Bitcoin bottom might be in, has supported this month’s aggressive rally. And Solana technicals are looking good.
Solana Technicals Looking Good
The cryptocurrency has been able to recover to the north of its 21, 50 and 100-Day Moving Averages and now appears to have formed a bullish trend channel. That suggests the near-term technical outlook is to the upside.
SOL/USD hasn’t so far been able to break to the north of resistance in the $26.0 area. Selling ahead of the 200DMA could partially be to blame. But it appears as though buying pressure ahead of this key resistance area is building. A break above $26 could open the door to a swift rally towards the next key area of resistance in the upper $30s.
Crypto Traders Predict Solana’s Outlook
According to a leading crypto analyst on TradingView going by the name ‘Richbust9,’ traders should consider recommends buying SOL before it goes over $26.00 because “it’s pretty spikey”. The best buying range would be between $20.00 and $26.00, the analyst said.
The analysts thinks that SOL has a shot of recovering to its record highs in the long-term, but notes that “there are big 3 obstacles of resistance that Solana needs to break”. These include at “the 40$ zone, 80$ zone and lastly 100$ area”. “It won’t be easy because of the Feds still increasing rates and inflation still high,” Richbust9 warns.
According to Cryptonews.com analyst John Isige, “despite the crash in 2022 – made worse by the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange, Solana still has a vibrant community and an ecosystem of applications and smart contracts tokens that are thriving in their capacities”.
Meanwhile, “the frequent network outages appear to have been solved completely following a series of upgrades in Q3 2023,” Isige notes, adding that “it has been almost four months since the Solana blockchain went offline”.
Others, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, have praised the Solana community. “Some smart people tell me there is an earnest smart developer community in Solana, and now that the awful opportunistic money people have been washed out, the chain has a bright future,” he said, referring to FTX’s outsized influence over the Solana ecosystem prior to the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse in November.
Is It Too Late to Buy Solana?
Asking whether it’s too late to buy an asset is never the right question. The answer is always never. The right question is whether an asset should be bought or not. And that depends on how an investor judges its long-term price performance outlook.
If you deem SOL as likely to rise substantially in price in the current years, based on your own research, it is probably worth buying some. If not, then stay away.
SOL Alternatives
If you’re looking for other high-potential crypto projects alongside SOL, we’ve reviewed the top 15 cryptocurrencies for 2023, as analyzed by the CryptoNews Industry Talk team.
The list is updated weekly with new altcoins and ICO projects.
Disclaimer: The Industry Talk section features insights by crypto industry players and is not a part of the editorial content of Cryptonews.com.