• $26 million SOL staked, signaling investor confidence as price gains 12% in the past week.
• Firedancer upgrade targets 1 million transactions/second, boosting Solana’s capacity and reliability by 2025.

Solana [SOL] has experienced a strong start in 2023, positioning itself as a major competitor to Ethereum [ETH]. Priced at $172.41 at the time of writing, Solana has recorded a 12.07% gain over the past week, despite a slight 0.51% decline in the last 24 hours.

Solana’s market cap stands at $81 billion, supported by a 470 million SOL circulating supply.

Source: TradingView

In the last three days, a fresh wallet withdrew 150,011 SOL (worth $26.25 million) from Binance and staked it, per Lookonchain data. This large staking activity suggests increased confidence among investors and supports the ongoing bullish sentiment for SOL.

Solana-Based memecoin rises 1,500%

Meanwhilem a new Solana-based memecoin, Goatseus Maximus (GOAT), has seen a rapid rise, gaining nearly 1,500% in two weeks. This surge occurred even before it was officially listed on exchanges, indicating strong community interest.

Trading at $0.6322, GOAT was consolidating its price at press time as it prepares for a potential rally.

Crypto analyst Altcoin Sherpa noted that GOAT could be the leader of the Solana memecoin category, pointing out its strong initial performance.

Memecoins have played a role in driving transaction volume and active addresses within the Solana ecosystem, contributing to recent growth metrics.

DeFi activity and network metrics

Solana’s DeFi sector remains active, with $6.69 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL), according to DeFiLlama data. While there was a 1.10% decrease in the last 24 hours, Solana maintains a robust presence in the DeFi space.

Daily metrics show 4.11 million active addresses and 37.88 million transactions, reflecting strong user engagement.

Source: DefiLlama

Revenue figures for the past day include $4.55 million in fees and $2.27 million in revenue, indicating a steady flow of network usage.

Solana’s ability to sustain high transaction volumes and DeFi inflows could support future price gains, particularly as more users engage with its ecosystem.

Firedancer upgrade to drive future growth

Moreover, Solana’s upcoming Firedancer upgrade, set for 2025, aims to enhance network capacity and reliability. It is designed to increase transaction throughput to 1 million transactions per second using sharding technology.

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

This upgrade could make the coin more attractive to institutional investors, potentially increasing user adoption beyond the memecoin space.

The Firedancer upgrade also aims to reduce network downtime, which has been a concern in the past. Analysts suggest that if Solana achieves these improvements, its market cap could approach half of Ethereum’s, further closing the gap between the two networks.