Cryptocurrency returns have been a mixed bag in 2025. Leading assets like Bitcoin (BTC 4.18%) and Ethereum (ETH 4.96%) have gained almost 20%, whereas the speculative end of the market has cooled off, with Dogecoin sinking by more than 40%.
Solana (SOL 6.41%) is sitting in the middle, and is little changed for year (as of Oct. 28). In my opinion, it's one of the most interesting cryptocurrencies because of its unique network, which has become a faster, cheaper, and more capable version of the Ethereum network.
A growing number of developers are building their decentralized applications on Solana, which could fuel further upside in the coin. So, could buying this cryptocurrency be your ticket to the millionaire's club in 2026?
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How Solana works
Ethereum remains the premier platform for building decentralized applications, which are popular in areas like finance and gaming. These apps run on smart contracts, which are slivers of computer code that live on the Ethereum blockchain and govern how each app functions. Smart contracts typically can't be changed, meaning no person, company, or government can manipulate the app's decentralized structure.
The Ethereum network itself is also fully decentralized, hosted on thousands of nodes (computers) situated all over the world, which maintain copies of its blockchain. This makes it far more secure than a network that's controlled centrally through a single data center.
Solana is conceptually similar, but it was built to address some of Ethereum's key limitations. For example, Ethereum uses a proof of stake (PoS) validation mechanism, which means participants in the network have to put up coins as collateral in order to gain the right to verify transactions and add blocks to the blockchain. They earn interest for doing so, but if they misbehave, they can lose some of their staked coins.
Solana also uses a PoS mechanism, but it does so in conjunction with a proof of history (PoH) validation mechanism that encodes each transaction on the blockchain with a timestamp. This speeds up the verification process and allows thousands of transactions to be processed per second, whereas Ethereum is often limited to 15 transactions at a time before congestion drives a sharp increase in fees (called "gas").
As is the case with Ethereum, whenever a smart contract is activated on Solana (known as a transaction), it triggers a fee payable in Solana coins. Thanks to Solana's combination of PoH and PoS validation mechanisms, its fees are much lower than Ethereum's, which is why Solana is becoming a popular platform for developers. Decentralized crypto exchange Jupiter and non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden are just a couple of the apps that have been built on Solana's network so far.
Solana's growing supply could limit further upside
Many cryptocurrencies will have ever-growing supplies because validating transactions involves a process called mining, which pays rewards in the form of new coins or tokens. Without these rewards, validators wouldn't participate in verifying transactions, and the ecosystems would fall apart.
Bitcoin is the most notable exception because its total mineable supply was capped by its designer at 21 million coins, and the large majority of them have already been mined. Its relative scarcity is one of the reasons some investors consider it to be a legitimate store of value. Solana, on the other hand, technically has an uncapped supply, which means new coins will continue to enter circulation in perpetuity.
However, Solana has a pre-programmed mechanism that tapers its rate of supply growth by 15% every year. Therefore, although supply increased by 8% in its first year, it will only increase by 4.2% this year. That figure will continue falling until it reaches 1.5%, where it will remain.
Some Solana tokens are burned in each transaction, which means they are removed from supply forever, so if the network eventually becomes extremely popular, the total available supply of coins might even start to shrink. However, that point could be years or even decades away.
A growing supply isn't good news for long-term value creation, because it constantly dilutes the value of existing tokens. Personally, I've never seen an asset with an unlimited supply that consistently increased in value.
CRYPTO: SOL
Key Data Points
Becoming a Solana millionaire might require a hefty starting balance
Making money in crypto is often about timing, because with the exception of Bitcoin, most coins have spun their wheels since peaking during the last speculative frenzy in 2021.
Had you bought Solana on Jan. 1, 2021, right before it took off, you'd be sitting on an eye-popping gain of 13,100% today. But had you bought it in early November of that year when it peaked at about $240, you'd be sitting on a loss of 17% right now. Solana did make a new record high of $294 early this year, but even then, a poorly timed investment from 2021 would have only yielded a small gain.
But there is one good indicator of the potential upside from here. The number of daily active Solana addresses soared to a new high of 9.1 million earlier this year, and while it's currently down to 3.5 million, that's still about five times more than its peak from 2021.
Simply put, a growing number of people are using the Solana network, which could drive demand for the coin over time. Still, I wouldn't bet on a life-changing return in 2026, considering the coin has gone nowhere in 2025.
