Solana has emerged as the inaugural winner of CoinMarketCap’s CMC Crypto of the Year award, according to a Mar. 6 statement shared with CryptoSlate.

The CMC award is designed to celebrate excellence in the crypto space across eight categories, honoring outstanding projects and individuals. It was awarded after a meticulous ten-day evaluation involving online voting, data analysis, and expert reviews.

Crypto of the year

The award, which recognizes groundbreaking innovation and the enduring impact of a blockchain network on the industry, had nominees like Ripple, Chainlink, Ethereum, and Toncoin.

However, Solana triumphed over these strong contenders for showing resilience in overcoming various challenges, including network outages and the past relationship with the disgraced founder of defunct exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried.

Additionally, the blockchain network scored pivotal partnerships from various traditional finance projects like Visa and has experienced notable adoption during the past year,

These developments prompted asset management firm VanEck to predict that SOL will become one of the top three blockchain networks by market cap, total value locked (TVL), and active users by the end of this year.

Other winners:

Bridge Builder of the Year: BlackRock, the largest asset management firm in the world, claimed this title for its leading role in the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US. Other competitors in this field included PayPal, Reddit, Starbucks, and Nike.

Memecoin of the Year: BONK was given this accolade due to its significant impact on the Memecoin sector. During the past year, BONK rose more than 5000% in value and played an essential role in growing Solana’s ecosystem.

Social Influencer to Watch: Onchain crypto sleuth ZachXBT received recognition for his adeptness in uncovering scams and fraudulent activities within the crypto industry.

Most Innovative L1/L2/Cross-Chain Project: Celestia topped this category due to its advancements in scalability, security, and interoperability among networks. Celestia is the first modular blockchain network, which aims to simplify blockchain deployment and enhance scalability.

Most Innovative NFT and Gaming Project: Pudgy Penguins took the spotlight as the NFT project demonstrating the most innovation in the NFT and gaming space.

Most Innovative DeFi Project: Uniswap clinched this award, highlighting its groundbreaking contributions to the DeFi ecosystem. Recently, the DEX introduced a new governance proposal that redirects the protocol fees to UNI token holders to incentivize engagement within its community.

Crypto Leader of the Year: A remarkable tie occurred in this category, with Vitalik Buterin, Changpeng Zhao, Julia Leung, Brian Armstrong, and Ryan Selkis all sharing the award for their contributions to the industry.

CoinMarketCap CEO Rush Luton said:

“All five of the nominees have contributed so much over the last 12 months but in very different ways and we wanted to recognize all their tremendous efforts to move the industry forward.”

The CMC Awards winners were presented with Ethereum-based NFTs as tokens of recognition.