When capital flows, it tends to surge toward the assets with the deepest moats and the freshest growth stories with the most compelling visions for delivering value in the future. That's why some cryptocurrencies sprint ahead, while others merely jog in place.
Right now, two wildly different tokens, Solana (SOL 6.53%) and Shiba Inu (SHIB -1.95%), are lining up for the next leg of the market. One is a high-performance smart contract chain that keeps piling on real-world uses; the other is a cute dog logo meme coin with a largely extraneous blockchain attached.
Which of these coins will double faster, and which will have the best chance of retaining most of the value afterward?
Solana's growth flywheel is accelerating
Before a coin can double, it needs a catalyst. Solana has several, and they're all supporting the success of each other.
At roughly $177 a coin, Solana's market cap is about $95 billion today. Doubling requires it to add another $95 billion of value, which is no small feat, but at the same time, hardly an unprecedented amount. There's nothing unattainable about the idea of Solana doubling over the near term, and over the longer term, it's practically a given.
Real-world assets (RWAs), particularly stocks, are landing on the chain at a blistering pace.
The market value of tokenized stocks issued on Solana rocketed from $15 million on June 20 to more than $48 million by July 4, and then $103 million by July 17, thereby dramatically outpacing the tokenized stock growth of every other chain in the same short period. Tokenization of stocks, particularly the largest ones that investors are most likely to be familiar with, drives demand for the coin because every transfer, trade, and settlement burns a few drops of the chain's native token. Plus, institutional investors might be interested in tokenizing their assets to manage them more efficiently, which could be a driver of additional growth.
Meanwhile, the chain's developer base keeps swelling, indicating that there will be an even larger ecosystem in the future. There are more than 3,700 monthly active developers on the chain, making it one of the largest talent pools in crypto. More builders mean more apps, users, and fees that circle back to holders via staking rewards -- and more opportunities for investors to park their capital and get a decent return, which in turn completes the virtuous cycle by attracting more developers.
Put these strands together, and the conclusion is obvious: Solana doesn't need a miracle to double -- it only needs the trends already in motion to keep inching forward, and there is currently every indication that they will.
Image source: Getty Images.
Shiba Inu's hype engine is (still) sputtering
Shiba Inu has a market cap of about $8.5 billion. A doubling in price would add roughly $8.5 billion, which is, at least mathematically speaking, much easier than Solana's climb. The hard part here is finding the durable catalysts that would enable investors to retain the gains of any move higher, rather than simply having the price collapse again immediately after a spike.
The coin's enthusiasts have long pointed to the Shibarium, the Layer-2 (L2) chain launched in 2023 intended to give the coin real utility, as one of the pillars of its future relevance and success.
But that argument never quite landed, and now it's showing worrying signs of fatigue. New account creation peaked at 5,111 on May 6, but has since collapsed by more than 99%, falling below 100 per day. Daily burns of tokens, which were once touted as a supply scarcity mechanism, are down 95% week over week.
User activity is fading, too. Shibarium processed fewer than 4 million transactions on multiple days in late June and early July, a far cry from the 40 million-plus bursts seen after the chain's launch.
Could a viral meme wave send Shiba Inu soaring anyway? Certainly yes. Sentiment swings fast when there is lots of liquidity. Speculative appetites might well drive investors to pile into the coin.
But history shows that meme rallies fade just as quickly as they start. Without clear utility or fresh developer energy, Shiba Inu's prospects of doubling look like they're completely dependent on the macro environment and fickle investor sentiment.
Looking across both chains, the odds clearly favor Solana to double first and also to retain its gains over time.
It already handles serious transaction loads, earns real fee revenue, and offers a roadmap packed with practical use cases. Those ingredients create organic, repeat demand for Solana that can support a price surge and then keep it aloft once the initial excitement fades.
Shiba Inu, by contrast, depends on episodic hype cycles that history suggests will taper off before long.
Hope can win the short sprint now and then, but fundamentals usually take the marathon.
