What happened
Solana's (SOL 7.78%) impressive rise over the past two days continued into early this morning, with the price appreciating 4.2% over the past 24 hours as of 8 a.m. ET. But the cryptocurrency has also been volatile this morning, trading 0.9% lower as of 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
Overall, Solana has traded within a relatively narrow band this morning. Investors appear to still be digesting yesterday's very positive news for the smart-contract-enabled network, which took two forms.
First, Solana announced its Solana Pay platform, launched in partnership with Solana Labs. Solana Pay aims to become a leader in crypto payments among merchants. This blockchain network's throughput speed of approximately 50,000 transactions per second and relatively minuscule transaction costs are seen as likely positive drivers for the new payments platform.
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Second, Coinbase Global announced the listing of two SPL-based tokens (similar to ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, but on Solana's blockchain). Both Bonfida (FIDA 6.10%) and Orca (ORCA) will be available for transfer into Coinbase, while actual trading remains on the horizon.
So what
These are undoubtedly massive catalysts for Solana investors to consider. The expectation that Solana could become a true leader in real-world payments with Solana Pay is particularly noteworthy. While other top tokens have sought to become ubiquitous peer-to-peer payments platforms, Solana Pay looks like it could actually do it.
Network disruptions and other issues that have hampered Solana will need to be ironed out. This isn't a platform without risk. But over the last 48 hours, its potential appears to have investors looking past the near-term growing pains.
The listing of Solana-based tokens on Coinbase is a first. As with any Coinbase listing, Bonfida and Orca are likely to be in the spotlight. Solana's status as a true large-scale ecosystem has certainly been enhanced by these listings.
Now what
It appears that some of the bullish momentum many crypto investors had taken for granted previously is coming back. The fact that Solana has held most of its recent gains suggests this rally could be far from over. For Solana bulls, there's a new narrative to hang their hats on.
As mentioned, there are still network issues that could provide a near-term headwind for Solana. But assuming those get ironed out, perhaps this is a great entry point for investors to buy the dip (its token is still down more than 50% from its high last year). Seeing what's going on in the stock market and how correlated that equities and cryptos have been of late, that conclusion may be overly simplistic, but on point.
