Opinion: Influenced by memes, Solana's market cap could reach $1 trillion
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Opinion: Influenced by memes, Solana's market cap could reach $1 trillion
Which horse would you bet on? Obviously, the fastest one.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: J◎e McCann
Translation: TechFlow
I believe SOL could eventually reach a $1 trillion valuation. Here's why:
Solana has found product-market fit (PMF) and is now a blockchain suited for retail traders.
Ethereum was never designed for retail users (its L1 is too slow and transaction fees are expensive), and current L2s offer poor user experiences, high onboarding friction for new users, and fragmented liquidity (with over 40 L2s in the market today).
Coinbase, a staunch supporter and advocate of Ethereum, owns Base, an open-source L2 backed by their company.
If Coinbase manages to solve many of the L2 user experience issues, millions of users could adopt Ethereum L2 "overnight."
But the problem of liquidity fragmentation remains unsolved.
I'm a big fan of corporate open source—I love it. There are countless examples:
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Google: Chromium (Chrome browser, Chromebook)
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Facebook: React.js
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Amazon: Firecracker (AWS Lambda, "serverless")
Notice the pattern here? All of these are large Web2 companies.
Most corporate open-source projects ultimately serve the company’s priorities—namely revenue growth. There's nothing wrong with pursuing revenue; after all, they are publicly traded, profit-driven companies. But this can lead to unintended consequences, such as Chrome's aggressive tracking features. Still, on balance, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
Solana was initially described as a "blockchain at Nasdaq speed," emphasizing its high-throughput, low-latency design. However, the narrative around this description carried strong overtones of "enterprise-grade" or "industrial-grade"—or put simply, "institutional."
In 2021, Solana was closely associated with SBF, then the darling of crypto, who as a former Jane Street trader was focused on building a "fast and scalable" exchange business.
The idea of Solana as a retail-focused blockchain never existed—until now, when things have shifted.
For Solana to embrace this new narrative, it needs clear product-market fit (PMF).
Current institutional offerings lack this PMF—most blockchains do too (including Bitcoin; ETFs aren't on-chain).
But now, through meme coins and a flood of speculative gamblers, Solana has achieved PMF. Meme activity on Solana is currently exploding.
$SHIB and $PEPE are on Ethereum.
$BONK and $WIF are on Solana. But right now, thousands of transactions are being created daily on Solana, and trading volume is exploding.
Trading bots—aka "crypto Robinhood-ification"—are driving most of this activity due to excellent user experience.
Most bots are trading meme coins on Solana.
In terms of DEX trading volume, Solana is already surpassing Ethereum. Yet for some reason, $SOL is still only worth a quarter of Ethereum’s value—just days ago, it was only one-eighth.
Back to Base on Coinbase. Today, even Coinbase Prime (institutional) clients cannot send USDC on Solana—they can only send it on Ethereum.
Moreover, retail users actually want what Coinbase cannot provide—meme coins on Solana.
In fact, Coinbase has had issues managing the "send" function for $SOL.
Clearly, Solana is currently the blockchain for retail and individual traders. So what does that mean in value? I think a $1 trillion market cap is a solid target.
Currently, Ethereum’s market cap is just under $500 billion. Solana’s stands at around $115 billion.
$ETH reaching $1 trillion would be double its current value. $SOL reaching $1 trillion would be nearly tenfold.
Which horse would you bet on? Obviously, the fastest one.
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