A large surge in memecoin activity has driven decentralized exchange (DEX) volume on Solana (SOL) to record highs, the latest on-chain data shows. According to blockchain analytics platform DefiLlama, Solana’s volume reached $3.802 billion on Saturday, a high that eclipses old records set earlier this year. Solana’s total value locked (TVL) has also seen a […]
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The top decentralized exchange (DEX) built on Solana (SOL) plans to restrict Americans from trading on its platform at the end of the month. Orca (ORCA) announced the new restriction on its website this week, however, it did not provide a reason for the change in policy. “Orca will be adding the United States to […]
The post Top Decentralized Exchange Built on Solana (SOL) To Ban US Customers From Trading Amid Regulatory Uncertainty appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Norby said the “experiment” was part of a plan to onboard more people onto Solana, but the stores didn’t bring in as many users as they initially hoped.
Solana Spaces will close down its two Solana (SOL)-themed, community-oriented retail stores in New York City and Miami at the end of the month, as the physical stores didn’t onboard as many users as initially anticipated.
Solana Spaces tweeted the news on Feb. 21, sharing a note from founder Vibhu Norby explaining the reasons behind the store shutdowns.
The following is a note from our founder, @vibhu.
— Solana Spaces (@solanaspaces) February 21, 2023
Dear @solanaspaces community,
We’ve made the difficult decision to sunset our stores in NYC and Miami by the end of February, and to pivot our Solana onboarding efforts into digital products like DRiP, our free NFT product with… https://t.co/kjNu9Ay4Gk
Norby — who founded Solana Spaces in early 2022 — explained that the company reached an “inflection point” with the stores, prompting them to shift its investment focus to “DRiP,” the firm’s new nonfungible token artwork airdrop platform.
“While our stores onboard between 500 and 1,000 people per week, DRiP onboards that same quantity EVERY DAY,” Norby said, explaining the decision to shift its investment focus.
The decision to close the shops — located in the Hudson Yards neighborhood of Manhattan and the Wynwood section of Miami — was made “a few weeks ago,” and they will “sunset” at the end of February, Norby said.
The ambitious initiative was relatively short-lived, with the two stores having only officially opened in late July and August in New York and Miami respectively.
Norby said the “experiment” was part of a broader plan to onboard more people into the Solana and Web3 ecosystem:
“Our endowed mission from day one was to experiment with new and disruptive models to bring people to Web3, and to serve the community on behalf of the Solana Foundation.”
“As I told people often, as awesome as the stores were, if we found a more efficient way to bring people into Solana, we would throw our efforts at that,” he added.
But as he has since realized, the firm’s efforts may achieve better results in the digital realm with DRiP.
The Solana-themed stores offered customers the opportunity to partake in all things from in-person wallet onboarding tutorials, earning rewards, merchandise shopping and attending events.
When Solana Spaces opened its first New York-based store in late July, Norby hoped the store would bring in more than 100,000 people to Solana per month.
However, Norby stated in his letter that only 75,000 people managed to walk into the store over the course of its seven-month tenure.
Related: The state of Solana: Will the layer-1 protocol rise again in 2023?
The startup was sponsored by the Solana Foundation, the Solana-based wallet provider Phantom and the native crypto exchange Orca, and while it didn’t work out, it did appear to have won over a lot of fans.
Just visited for my 2nd time a few days ago!
— Investrepreneuer.sol (@LordHearMePray) February 15, 2023
Thank you for the experience!
Every time I come to Miami I have to make a pilgrimage to SolanaSpaces pic.twitter.com/ugCqbSyIzg
Several Solana-native industry players, such as the videogame projects Star Atlas and Aurory, thanked Solana Spaces for its contribution to the ecosystem.
We're sad to hear the news of @solanaspaces closing their Miami and NYC stores The events that Star Atlas attended and hosted there were beyond incredible!
— Star Atlas (@staratlas) February 21, 2023
Even so, we can't wait to see what comes from their pivot to DRiP! https://t.co/4voal4yzfC pic.twitter.com/bXV8PKG6LE
The closure comes as the prolonged crypto winter has caused many industry-leading companies to lay off staff and close down offices all around the world.
Coinbase continues to expand its crypto footprint by extending custodial services support to dozens of altcoins for international customers. In a new announcement, the US-based cryptocurrency exchange says it’s adding 70 cryptocurrencies to its roster of 150+ assets that are part of the Coinbase Custody International cold storage trust in Dublin, Ireland. “These new assets […]
The post Coinbase Abruptly Adds Support for 70 New Altcoins to Global Custody Service appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
SOL price has been repeatedly knocked down by network outages, a shrinking total value locked on the network and futures traders’ disinterest in trading the altcoin.
The past thirty days have been an extremely bearish time for cryptocurrencies. The sector's aggregate market capitalization plunged 33% to $1.31 trillion and Solana's (SOL) downfall has been even more brutal. Currently, SOL has seen a 50% correction and trades at $51.
The network aims to overcome the Ethereum blockchain's scalability problem by incorporating a proof-of-history (PoH) mechanism into a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. With PoH, Solana delegates a central node to determine a transaction time that the entire network can agree on.
The low fees delivered by the Solana network have enticed developers and users alike, but the frequent network outages continue to cast doubt on the centralization issue and it has likely scared away some investors.
Pinning the underperformance exclusively to the 7-hour network outage on April 30 seems too simplistic, and it doesn't explain why the decoupling started a month earlier. According to Solana Labs, the issue was caused by bots initiating numerous transactions on Metaplex, a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace built on Solana.
The transaction volume surpassed six million per second during its peak, overflowing individual nodes and as a consequence, validators ran out of data memory which led to a loss of consensus and network interruption.
To mitigate the issue, developers introduced three steps: a change in the data transfer protocol, stake-weighted transaction processing and "fee-based execution priority."
Solana's main decentralized application metric started to display weakness earlier in November after the network's total value locked (TVL), which measures the amount deposited in its smart contracts, repeatedly failed to sustain levels above 60 million SOL.
However, the 50% price correction has other factors than just a reduced TVL. To confirm whether DApp use has effectively decreased, investors should also analyze the number of active addresses within the ecosystem.
May 18 data from DappRadar shows that the number of Solana network addresses interacting with the top-7 decentralized applications dropped, except for the DEX exchange Orca. The reduced interest in Solana DApps was also reflected in SOL’s futures markets.
The above chart shows how Solana futures open interest declined by 22% in the past month to the current $510 million. That is especially concerning because a smaller number of futures contracts might reduce the activity of arbitrage desks and market makers.
It's probably impossible to pinpoint the exact reason for Solana's price drop, but centralization issues after multiple network outages, a decrease in the network's DApps use and fading interest from derivatives traders are three factors contributing to the decline.
The data reviewed in this article suggests that Solana holders should not expect a price bounce anytime soon because the network health metrics remain under pressure. There's no doubt that Solana Labs has been working to reduce its dependence on the networks' validators, but at the same time, investors want to avoid centralized projects.
Should the sentiment start to improve, there should be an inflow of deposits, increasing Solana's TVL and the number of active addresses. As long as these indicators continue to deteriorate, there's no way to predict a price bottom for SOL.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.
SOL price gave up a chunk of its recent gains, but data shows there are strong reasons for investors to remain bullish.
Solana (SOL) price reached $143.50 on April 2 after an incredible 82% rally over a 20 day period. This positive performance can be attributed to recent NFT markets-related news and a marketwide bounce, but the current 22.7% decline could have investors confused.
The rally started after Coinbase Wallet added support for SOL and other Solana-based blockchain tokens on March 18. The crypto exchange also outlined plans to "further integrate" with Solana by connecting the Coinbase Wallet with the decentralized applications (DApps) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) hosted on the network.
The expectation of OpenSea's integration of the Solana network also excited investors. This means Solana will join Ethereum, Polygon and Klaytn as the payment options visible in the drop-down "all chains" tab on OpenSea's "rankings" page.
Solana's strategy to focus on NFT markets seems to have paid off because the layer-1 blockchain network has risen to third place all-time in total NFT sales on April 6. Moreover, the latest 30-day accumulated data shows Solana amassing $216 million worth of NFT sales.
Solana's primary decentralized application (DApp) metric started to display weakness in late March after the network's total value locked (TVL) dropped below SOL 50 million.
The chart above shows how Solana's DApp deposits saw a 30% decrease in three weeks as the indicator reached its lowest level since Sept. 20, 2021. As a comparison, Terra's TVL increased by 34% year-to-date, while Fantom network deposits grew by 30%.
On the bright side, on April 5, Neon released an alpha version for the first Solana Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) cross-compatibility and scaling solution and on April 7, Solana announced that over 1.6 million network addresses currently hold an NFT.
To confirm whether the TVL drop is concerning, one should analyze DApp usage metrics.
As shown by DappRadar data on April 8, the number of Solana network addresses interacting with decentralized applications increased by 11% on average. Orca, a user-friendly decentralized exchange (DEX), was the absolute highlight, amassing 153,290 users.
Even though Solana's TVL has been hit the hardest compared to similar smart contract platforms, there is solid network use on DeFi and NFT marketplaces, as measured by Magic Eden's 212,230 active addresses in the last 30 days.
The data above suggests that Solana investors should not worry about the most recent correction. The Solana ecosystem is fueled by the delivery of important milestones toward Ethereum compatibility and NFT market integrations and as long as this happens the potential for further price appreciation seems likely.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Two small-cap altcoins built on Solana (SOL) are enjoying a boost after getting a surprise listing from Coinbase. The top crypto exchange in the US suddenly announced it would be accepting inbound transfers of Solana-based projects Bonfida (FIDA) and Orca (ORCA). Bonfida is built on top of both Solana and Solana-based Serum (SRM) and aims […]
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The decentralized exchange (dex) platform Orca has announced the platform has raised $18 million in a Series A financing round with Polychain, Placeholder, and Three Arrows co-leading the funding. The dex platform is a Solana-based project that aims to be the “go-to swap” platform for Solana. Solana’s Orca Gets an $18 Million Capital Raise On […]
