It's less than a month into the new year, and already a number of top altcoins are starting to pull away from market benchmark Bitcoin (BTC +3.99%). While Bitcoin is up 15% for the year, other cryptocurrencies are up 30%, 40%, and even 50%.
The one cryptocurrency on my radar right now is Solana (SOL +2.94%), which jumped more than 50% between Jan. 12 and Jan. 17. There are several catalysts for Solana in 2025, and all of them are setting up this cryptocurrency for rapid growth over the coming years.
The next Ethereum?
First and most importantly, Solana has emerged as the premier blockchain challenger to Ethereum (ETH +5.70%). Solana is a smart contract blockchain platform, and that means it can do anything Ethereum can do. It also means Solana has a thriving blockchain ecosystem in areas ranging from decentralized finance (DeFi) to blockchain gaming.
CRYPTO: SOL
Key Data Points
But here's the thing: Solana is faster, cheaper, and easier to use than Ethereum. That's something that Cathie Wood of Ark Invest pointed out nearly a year ago, when she emphasized the potential for Solana to take market share away from Ethereum. Faster speeds and lower costs are key to winning over new customers and attracting new users. For good reason, Solana has been tagged as a potential Ethereum killer.
New spot ETFs
There's another big factor in Solana's favor: the relatively high probability that new spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will be coming in 2025. Think back to the arrival of the spot Bitcoin ETFs last January, and how they resulted in tens of billions of dollars flowing into Bitcoin, thereby pushing up its price. All told, more than $100 billion has now flowed into the spot Bitcoin ETFs.
That's not to say that $100 billion is going to flow into Solana. After all, Bitcoin is of an entirely different scale and size than Solana. But J.P. Morgan recently suggested that as much as $6 billion of new investor money could flow into the Solana ETFs.
Mobile crypto strategy
Solana also has something that no other top Layer-1 blockchain network has: a mobile crypto strategy. Solana launched the crypto-friendly Saga smartphone in 2023, and is following that up with a lower-cost Seeker smartphone in 2025. Some people want to carry their crypto with them wherever they go, and the easiest way to do that is with a mobile device optimized for crypto.
Image source: Getty Images.
According to Solana's founders, a mobile device optimized for crypto is the easiest way to onboard new users. Once you buy a new Solana mobile device, you're more likely to use the Solana blockchain, and to interact with all the different apps within the Solana blockchain ecosystem.
Meme coins
Solana has emerged as the blockchain of choice for launching, buying, and selling meme coins. Thousands of new meme coins are being created daily, and Solana is arguably the easiest, lowest-cost, and most efficient blockchain platform to do that.
Just think about the new meme coin launched by President Donald Trump in the weekend before his inauguration. The meme coin launched on the Solana blockchain, and immediately soared to a valuation of $10 billion. On the news of the meme coin launch, the price of Solana spiked by 12%.
While I don't support the idea of buying meme coins as part of a long-term investment strategy, I think the case can be made that buying Solana is a clever way to benefit from the meme coin trend. That's because you need to buy Solana tokens in order to buy Solana meme coins (just as you need dollars to buy dollar-denominated assets).
Thus, any spike in meme coin trading boosts overall demand for Solana. That's why the price of Solana rallied after the Trump meme coin launch. Total trading volume on the Solana blockchain more than doubled, while overall transaction activity exploded.
How high can Solana go?
There are a number of different ways to think about just how much higher Solana might go over the long haul. If you buy into the idea that Solana is the next Ethereum, then one methodology is simply to compare the market caps of Solana and Ethereum, and then make some basic assumptions about just how quickly Solana might close the gap.
Currently, Ethereum has a market cap of $400 billion, while Solana has a market cap of $125 billion. So, if Solana does eventually close the gap with Ethereum, we're talking about a potential gain of $275 billion in market cap. Based on Solana's current price of approximately $250, that would suggest a target price of $550.
Just keep in mind: A lot needs to go right for Solana to hit that target. It must continue to take market share away from Ethereum. It needs regulatory approval for new spot ETFs. And it must continue to execute on its mobile crypto strategy. That's a lot to ask. But if all that happens, then Solana -- and not Bitcoin -- is the cryptocurrency you need to buy right now.
