What happened
The world of cryptocurrencies was on fire this morning, and Solana (SOL -2.26%) was leading the way. Solana jumped as much as 17.5% in trading over the last 24 hours and as of 11:30 a.m. ET is up 15.1% on the day.
So what
The biggest news to hit Solana in the last day is word of a $150 million gaming fund from Forte, Griffin Gaming Partners, and Solana Ventures. As the companies backing cryptocurrencies aim to build utility, using games has become a popular growth strategy, and this is a very large fund to build games for Solana. This follows a $100 million fund by Solana Ventures, FTX, and Lightspeed Venture Partners in November to invest in play-to-earn games.
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Another big announcement came from former first lady Melania Trump, who is launching an NFT on Solana. People can buy a Trump NFT for 1 SOL or $187 on a credit card through MoonPay, and funds will support the Be Best initiative. In a statement, Trump said she hopes to release more tokens in 2022.
Now what
The theme here is that Solana is becoming a go-to cryptocurrency for utility projects and low-cost NFT sales. Selling a sub-$200 NFT on a blockchain like Ethereum is too expensive, and it's a race to build lower-cost alternatives. Solana appears to be winning that race against other cryptocurrencies, which is why its value is up sharply today.
