• Solana has emerged as a strong competitor to Ethereum, replicating its early growth charts. 
• However, there are still gaps to address.

Solana [SOL] surged over 4% in the last 24 hours, trading at $138 and nearing its earlier resistance.

Interestingly, this pump has rekindled interest in its challenge to Ethereum. While Ethereum remains dominant, Solana is gaining ground. 

Hence, can SOL’s strides shift stakeholders’ focus and prompt it to test its original ATH?

SOL is mirroring ETH’s early growth

With 39.3 million daily active addresses, Solana outpaced Ethereum by 11,228% compared to Ethereum’s 350K, showing rising user interest in SOL.

However, Ethereum’s TVL of $44.5 billion dwarfs Solana’s $4.6 billion, maintaining its DeFi dominance.

These figures clarify why Ethereum lags slightly behind Bitcoin in market cap but also spotlight Solana’s impressive growth despite being launched five years later.

Consequently, AMBCrypto explored whether Solana is nearing Ethereum’s earlier growth surge, given this time gap.

Interestingly, while Ethereum once led with $10 billion in DEX volume, Solana has since closed the gap significantly. In December last year, Solana even surpassed Ethereum with $2.9 billion in DEX volume compared to Ethereum’s $1.9 billion.

In essence, SOL is mirroring Ethereum’s early DEX growth, achieving similar milestones within its first three years. If this trend holds, Solana could overshadow Ethereum’s network activity. 

However, DEX volume alone does not validate this hypothesis – what is next?

Solana exploits Ethereum’s shortcomings

Universally recognized as an Ethereum killer, Solana was developed to capitalize on Ethereum’s shortcomings. Chief among these is Ethereum’s high gas fees.

As a result, SOL has consistently led in daily transactions since launch, reaching a peak of 37 million daily transactions, far surpassing Ethereum’s 1.1 million.

Together, the high DEX volume and surge in daily transactions underscore Solana developers’ progress toward their goal.

Surprisingly, despite the strong fundamentals, SOL is still 4.6x away from ETH in market cap.  

Much ground still to cover

Despite Solana’s strengths over Ethereum, it has a long road ahead to overshadow Ethereum’s market cap. 

To begin with, the development activity has dropped to an all-time low, indicating potential network complacency. With Ethereum’s upcoming full transition to 2.0, this could be a concern for SOL stakeholders.

Meanwhile, the futures traders might be the first to capitulate, as indicated by the declining OI, which has plummeted from $2.3 billion to $1.7 billion since Solana last tested the $200 price.

Read Solana’s [SOL] Price Prediction 2024–2025

In summary, while Solana has surpassed Ethereum in several areas since its launch, it must advance its platform further to achieve a complete takeover.

Otherwise, with Ethereum’s impending upgrade, closing the gap could become increasingly difficult – reaching $200 might be just the first step.