It wasn't love at first sight, but love at first hearing. Ever since I heard the word "Solana", I fell in love with it. It conjured calming vibes and was so easy to roll off my tongue. Upon finding out that the name was actually inspired by an actual beach called Solana Beach in San Diego, America, I loved it even more. Come on, who doesn't love idyllic beaches?!
Now, the reason why Solana drew my attention may be a tad frivolous but let me assure you that it delivers a serious punch in the crypto space. Did you know that it is currently the fastest layer 1 blockchain available out there today? In fact, it even beats its established rivals like Ethereum. Ethereum crawls like a tortoise compared to Solana because it can handle only about 15 transactions per second. And Solana? A whooping 50,000 transactions per second at a wallet-friendly price of $0.00001!
Because of its turbo speed and low cost, it's no wonder that Solana has garnered lots of public attention these days. So much so that it is dubbed as an Ethereum killer. That's why I am most optimistic about its growth potential. I mean, it was hovering between $2 and $4 for the whole of 2020 but it broke free from the crowd of cryptocurrencies to increase in value to about $110 sometime in 2021. At one point, it even traded at a price of ~$240. So I think it's fair to say that it is one of the coins to watch out in 2020.
Besides the name, another reason why Solana is popular is that it attracts many exciting and promising projects. Degenerate Ape Academy, Solana Monkey Business and Sollamas need no introduction - and they all sell NFTs on Solana. If you don't quite get the hype caused by NFTs, don't despair yet. The Solana blockchain network supports gaming too. One up-and-coming game is Star Atlas, in which NFTs in the form of ships earn you actual moolah. Every day. You can't go better than daily passive income, I reckon. And for the music lovers out there, guess what? Audius chose to migrate to Solana due to its wish to "scale community-owned music streaming". So, the Solana ecosystem is robust and just about fuels every other interest out there.
Not only does Solana makes it easy and convenient for people to enjoy their hobbies, it empowers ordinary retail investors to make serious bucks too. Allow me the privilege to just alpha drop two of the most popular lending and borrowing sites: Solend and Tulip. So you and I can lend and borrow our assets to earn some life-affirming APY. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Raydium is a DeFi app with on-chain liqudity; Oxygen is a DeFi prime brokerage protocol; and Serum is a decentralised exchange. That's a wide spread of buffet options that will help you get acquainted with the DeFi economy quickly in a way that feels aligned with your risk appetite and investment goals!
In fact, don't take my word for it. Solana organised a huge conference in Lisbon called Breakpoint recently. Now you might have missed the conference but thankfully, all the entertaining and enlightening content shared during this conference is generously made available on its YouTube channel. I hope that you will make your way there but in the rare chance that you don't let me TL;DR for you. The Metaplex Foundation raised $46 million from investors like THE Michael Jordan to expand the use cases of Solana NFTs. Another exciting development is Solana Ventures announcing that it will pump in $150 million dollars to fund blockchain-based gaming. Solana is conquering the world!
And the wonderful folks at BitYard provides an array of services that helps you advance towards your investment goals. These include spot, lite futures and futures trading spots - of which Solana trading pairs are supported. I will be honest with you guys and confess that being a noob investor, I don't think I will venture out into these more advanced investing routes yet. But since my knowledge of the crypto scene grows exponentially, thanks to you guys generously sharing first-hand tips and perspectives, I could very well feel the confidence to dip my toes in the trading waters too. Anyway, it boasts a Mystery Box reward feature, which should attract the best of us to sign up with it. Grab the low-hanging fruit first and bide for time to strike the market. I don't know if you resonate with what I just said, but that's my strategy.
So this ends #MyCryptoOutlook2022. I want to post a shoutout to The Giving Block because it works with more than 1000 non-profit organisations to accept crypto donations. Crypto is the future of currency and The Giving Block has ambitious plans to leverage this trend by plugging the funding gaps in our flawed capitalist system. Good luck to them! And power to BitYard, for it has pledged to donate 50,000 SHIB for my post! Thank you, BitYard.
Oh man, I am feeling the adrenaline from shilling my love for Solana so much that I want to go out for a run to feel this positive energy. Sounds like an ideal time for me to make use of Stepn, a Solana Play to Earn app that motivates people to run physically to earn tokens.
See you guys later!
