Despite Turbulence, Solana Remains a Top-10 Asset
Over the past six months, Solana (SOL) has experienced its fair share of turbulence. However, it continues to hold its position as a top-10 asset in the crypto sphere. This speaks volumes about the trust investors and holders have in Solana, often referred to as the “Ethereum killer” by its ardent users.
Price Movement and Recent Trends
Heading into 2023, SOL was trading around the $10 support zone, caught in a downtrend since November 2021 when it was valued at $200. However, the sentiment shifted to bullish as Bitcoin started climbing past $17k in January. Solana benefited significantly from this shift, recording gains of 175% in just 21 days. Despite the surge, SOL struggled to breach the $26-$28 resistance zone, which had acted as support between June and November 2022.
The Most Bullish Scenario for 2023
According to AMBCrypto’s prediction bot, the most optimistic projection for SOL in 2023 is a value of $75.5. However, we can turn to another bot, ChatGPT, to provide insights on the price, network health, and trajectory of Solana after feeding it with relevant data points.
Coaxing ChatGPT for Solana Price Prediction
ChatGPT, an impressive chatbot that learns from a wide range of topics, can offer some guesses about Solana’s future. However, it’s important to note that while the bot mimics human conversation, its responses may not always be factually accurate. Additionally, the jailbreak version of ChatGPT may provide even more inaccurate information as it is programmed not to decline any user requests.
Solana’s Potential as an Ethereum Killer
ChatGPT acknowledges Solana’s potential as an “Ethereum killer” based on transaction fees and transaction speeds. However, it is yet to be informed about the challenges faced by Solana and its investors in recent months.
FTX and the Beginning of the Freefall
Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX, was a prominent supporter of the Solana network and considered a credible and intelligent investor and entrepreneur. FTX, one of the largest crypto exchanges, posed a significant challenge to Binance in terms of volume and token pairs, fostering healthy competition in the industry.
However, the landscape has changed dramatically since then, as the SEC has charged Mr. Bankman-Fried with defrauding FTX’s equity investors. The allegations include commingling FTX customer funds with Alameda’s for undisclosed venture investments. If convicted on all counts, he could face over 100 years in jail.
This turn of events not only damaged Solana’s reputation but also led to the foundation selling a substantial amount of SOL to FTX Trading and Alameda Research. This amounted to 58.08 million SOL, equivalent to 11% of the circulating supply at the time FTX filed for bankruptcy. The value of this sale was nearly $1.1 billion.
Unsurprisingly, the price of Solana plummeted in November, experiencing a 45% decline from November 11 to December 31. It dropped from $18.08 to $8. Rumors of FTX’s insolvency had been circulating since November 5, and SOL had already lost 50% the previous week when it was trading near $38. This resulted in SOL’s total losses from November 5, 2022, to December 31, 2022, reaching 79.4%.
