Disclaimer: The information presented does not constitute financial, investment, trading, or other types of advice and is solely the writer’s opinion.
Solana [SOL] saw a recent dip in its price over the last week of trading, as it was seen trading at $103.56 at the time of writing.
On the other hand, Solana was able to regain its pre-FTX highs in terms of the Total Value Locked or TVL recently for the first time in over a year.
Once notorious for its outages, Solana claimed in July to have not suffered any outages since February.
Solana’s developer Jacob Creech recently announced a $400,000 bounty for anyone who could turn Solana off.
Solana’s flagship meme coin, BONK, is also gaining the attention of enthusiasts who are keen to boost its adoption.
BONK recently announced a “PooperScooper” function that helps users organize their assets more efficiently in their wallets.
Solana: A brief history
Even as SOL is touted to be the “Ethereum [ETH] killer,” Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko seems to agree with the idea of using Ethereum as a layer-2 for the Solana blockchain.
Even Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin is an admirer of the Solana protocol. When the SEC sued Binance [BNB] and Coinbase [COIN] in early June, it labeled several altcoins, including SOL, as securities.
Buterin rued how the regulator had targeted projects like Solana.
Heading into 2023, SOL was hovering around the $10 support zone. It was already in the grips of a downtrend that stretched back to November 2021, back when SOL was trading at $200.
We asked ChatGPT for its take on the price, network health, and the trajectory of Solana after giving it some relevant data points.
ChatGPT’s take on SOL’s future
ChatGPT has been a remarkable chatbot, and the updates of the past month have made ChatGPT 4.0 quite impressive. It is a powerful tool for learning and training on a vast array of topics.
Yet, we must remember that the bot is engineered to mimic a human, and is not necessarily guaranteed to be factually accurate.
The jailbreak version of ChatGPT would likely be even more inaccurate, as it is specifically instructed not to say no to anything the user requests.
And yet, it is possible to obtain some guesses from the chatbot on what the future might hold if we provide it with details about recent price movements.
So, what does ChatGPT make of Solana? Does it see a route to recovery after its recent setbacks? Based on transaction fees and transaction speeds, ChatGPT seems to think Solana will be an Ethereum killer.
Source: ChatGPT
We have yet to inform it of the challenges that Solana and SOL investors have faced in recent months. Let’s start with the biggest dent in investor confidence –
The fall of FTX
Sam Bankman-Fried “SBF” was one of the most vocal proponents of the Solana network. The community saw him as a credible and smart entrepreneur who was the CEO of one of the largest crypto exchanges, FTX.
Even though Binance reigned supreme in terms of volume and token pairs, FTX was giving it a run for its money. Competition is also good for the industry and serves the customers.
A lot has changed since then, as there is a trial going on against SBF. It has been alleged he commingled FTX customer funds with those of Alameda Research to make undisclosed venture investments.
He could face years in jail if convicted on all counts.
Not only did the reputation of Solana take a hit, but the foundation also sold a significant amount of SOL to FTX Trading and Alameda Research.
This amounted to 58.08 million SOL, or 11% of the circulating supply at the time FTX filed for bankruptcy, valued at close to $1.1 billion at the time.
As expected, the price of Solana nosedived in November and declined by 45% from the 11th of November to the 31st of December, falling from $18.08 to $8.
With rumors of FTX’s insolvency circulating from the 5th of November, SOL had already lost 50% the previous week, when it was trading near the $38 mark.
This took SOL’s total losses from the 5th of November 2022 to the 31st of December 2022 to 79.4%.
Source: ChatGPT
ChatGPT certainly sounds optimistic, and early 2023 went extraordinarily well for investors. And yet, some network issues cropped up, just as they had in 2022.
ChatGPT’s take on SOL
From the 1st of January to the 20th of February 2023, Solana gained by 179.88% on the price charts and rallied from $9.69 to $27.12.
The explosive rally has been credited partially to Bonk; a meme coin introduced within the Solana ecosystem modeled after Shiba Inu.
A part of the total 99 trillion supply was airdropped into the wallets of Solana users in December.
The transaction count per day was on a downtrend in the second half of December, but this turned around in early January.
Soon enough, the transactions were picking up pace once more. The introduction of the fun meme coin did much to bring the community away from the dark, depressing shadow the FTX debacle had cast on Solana.
When fed with on-chain data and price action in recent months, the jailbroken version of ChatGPT predicted that SOL’s price would reach $800 by the end of Q4.
Source: ChatGPT
We also asked the chatbot about Solana’s outages in the past, which might hurt investor confidence.
Source: ChatGPT
Solana’s price charts
Source: TradingView
Solana was trading at $103.56 with a 4.93% drop in its price in the last week of trading. The Awesome Oscillator (AO) saw red bars being formed above the 0-level, showing signs of a possible pullback.
The On Balance Volume also reflected this sentiment, as the price was seen moving between the $125.12 to $80.51 levels.
If it can break past the upper limit on this range, then further upward movement can be expected.
Final word
Solana has experienced a small win with its TVL milestone while the price was still trading in the red. ChatGPT also thinks very highly of the coin, claiming it will reach a whopping $800 by the end of 2024.
Its image of an “Ethereum-killer” with better scalability, higher transaction throughput, and lower transaction fees is something that the chatbot is optimistic about.
Although ChatGPT is a tool used widely for trading by many, it is important to do your own research before investing in the crypto space.