Solana continues comeback with 137% YTD price surge

• Solana is currently changing hands at $23.26, about 137% up year-to-date.
• The coin’s price plummeted after FTX fell in November, ending the year below $10.
• SOL price has soared amid positive sentiment, broader market rally and meme coin-driven interest.

Solana traded below $10.00 on the first day of 2023, having plummeted more than 73% in a massive dump following the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

As was the case, Solana is a blockchain project with ties to disgraced crypto figure Sam Bankman-Fried – the founder of FTX and Alameda Research. After both companies filed for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried found himself in custody, the native Solana token SOL took a nosedive.

Solana’s SOL soars 137% year-to-date

Having ended 2022 at around $9.66, SOL price has seen impressive bullish action over the past two weeks. The token’s price has rebounded strongly to currently trade more than 62% in the past week, according to crypto market data aggregator CoinGecko.

For its YTD price, SOL is up more than 137%, trading at $23.26 across major exchanges on Monday, 16 January, 2023.

A turnaround for SOL comes on the back of positive sentiment from across the crypto, including last month’s optimistic outlook for the Solana ecosystem from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin. 

A rebound in decentralised finance (DeFi) and meme coin craze-related activity is also leading to more buy Solana market action. Another factor driving SOL price in recent days has been the broader enthusiasm in the market after what was typically a suffocating run at the backend of last year.

On 12 January, crypto markets platform Messari highlighted that Solana was far from “dead.” According to the firm, on-chain data showed both transaction volumes and active accounts on the Solana blockchain had surged to levels last seen before the FTX collapse.

Is @solana dead? Its fundamentals might say otherwise.

Transaction volumes and active accounts both spiked back to pre-FTX levels.

While tweets and meme coins may have been the cause for recent activity, it is difficult to pinpoint the FTX collapse by looking at these metrics. pic.twitter.com/hL05ixfLVw

– Messari (@MessariCrypto) January 12, 2023

As CoinJournal previously covered, some of the uptick in activity followed the launch of meme coin Bonk (BONK), with significant spike in interest in Solana after the cryptocurrency’s airdrop to the community.