Investment Disclaimer:

• I am not a registered investment, legal, or tax adviser or a broker/dealer, and all opinions expressed by me are from my research for educational purposes only.
• Past performance presented here is not an indicator of future performance.
• This post expresses my own opinion about the cryptocurrency mentioned herein and is not an offer to buy or sell, or a solicitation of any offer to buy or sell the cryptocurrency mentioned in this post.
• I do hold a long position in SOL as a token holder.

0. What is Solana?

Solana is a Layer 1 blockchain which runs on proof-of-history consensus mechanism. It has been reported as the fastest blockchain with very low gas fees. It offers its users a block time of approximately 400 milliseconds, which is way more faster than other layer 1 smart contract blockchains like Ethereum which has a block time of about 15 seconds and Binance Smart Chain which comes with a block time of around 3 seconds. In addition, it has the capability to process as many as 50,000 transactions per second (tps), and its average cost per transaction is $0.00025. Despite its promises, please note that Solana is still under a Beta stage at the moment and there were incidents of network outrage and  DDoS attack .

However, there are already plenty of DApps which have now been deployed on Solana Mainnet and the development activities are rallying despite the occasional network issues. 

Source: https://solana.com/ecosystem

If you are interested to explore more about Solana, one of the easiest ways to acquire Solana native SOL token which is needed to pay gas fees is via Crypto.com Exchange. Crypto.com offers a user-friendly and nicely designed platform for everyone to acquire cryptocurrency fast and secured. New users who join Crypto.com are entitled to 0% credit/ debit card fees when purchasing your crypto with Crypto.com for the first 30 days.

If you are interested in signing up an account/ getting a Visa card with crypto cashback rewards from Crypto.com, you may sign up with quantdoge referral link as follow:

https://crypto.com/app/j2dc67xe82

with the referral code of j2dc67xe82 , where both of us would get USD 25 once you stake for a Ruby card or above.

1A. Top 3 Good News for SOL HODLERS !!!

• Mike Tyson Goes "All In" on Solana
  Statistic as of 2022-01-13 07:33 AM EDT: 41 positive votes, 10 negative votes
  
  (Extracted from Crypto Panic)
  
  
• Solana’s Phantom wallet sees record growth with over 1.8M MAUs in 9 months
  Statistic as of 2022-01-13 07:33 AM EDT: 20 positive votes, 5 negative votes
  
  (Extracted from Crypto Panic)
  
  
• Coinbase Executive Makes Crypto Predictions for 2022, Says Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX) and Other Layer-1s To Continue Growth
  Statistic as of 2022-01-13 07:33 AM EDT: 12 positive votes, 0 negative vote
  
  (Extracted from Crypto Panic)

1B. Top Bad News for SOL HODLERS !!!

• Solana Network Suffers Another Reported DDoS Attack
  Statistic as of 2022-01-13 07:33 AM EDT: 9 positive votes, 51 negative votes
  
  (Extracted from Crypto Panic)

2. How Solana Performs Relative to Other Cryptos ?

Performance of All Cryptos Under Quantdoge Watchlist in 2021 (Sorted by % Return)

SOL has undergone 9,153.42% return from USD 1.5158 to USD 140.2634 since 01 Jan 2021. SOL is the 5th best performing crypto assets among others here.

3. How Resilience Solana Is Towards Bitcoin Crash Relative to Other Cryptos ?

Historically, all altcoins are somewhat dependent on Bitcoin price movement and it’s often the case where if Bitcoin falls, most altcoins would follow.

Top 3 Cryptos That Are Most Resilient To Bitcoin Crash During Each of BTC 4 Largest Crashes in 2021

SOL has proven resilience against BTC crash in 0 out of the 4 instances.

During the last 4 BTC market crashes,
When BTC dropped by -13.47 %, SOL returned -36.37 % at 20 May 2021,
When BTC dropped by -13.13 %, SOL returned -19.58 % at 22 January 2021,
When BTC dropped by -12.16 %, SOL returned -2.47 % at 13 May 2021,
When BTC dropped by -11.39 %, SOL returned -24.63 % at 22 June 2021
           
4. Technical Analysis on Solana

4.1. Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP)

VWAP is a technical indicator used by a trader to gauge the overall trend of an asset price movement. VWAP line (orange line) represents the volume-weighted average price (average price here is defined as the average of high, low and close prices) while close price line (blue line) represents the price when SOL is closed at the end of every single day. 

Whenever blue line (close price) is above orange line (VWAP), it indicates that the asset is gaining momentum and being traded higher than its average price level. This would represent a 'buy' opportunity for short-term momentum trader whom task is to trade following the trend while a longer term mean-revision trader might take it as a 'sell' opportunity, anticipating that the price of SOL (blue line) to fall to its average level (orange line).

Whenever blue line (close price) is below orange line (VWAP), it indicates that the asset is losing momentum and being traded lower than its average price level. This would represent a 'sell' opportunity for short-term momentum trader whom task is to trade following the trend while a longer term mean-revision trader might take it as a 'buy' opportunity, anticipating that the price of SOL (blue line) to rise to its average level (orange line).

As of 12 Jan 2022, VWAP is suggesting that SOL has just started to gain back its momentum after a large drawdown last week as BTC crashed.

4.2. Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD)


MACD is often used by trader as a momentum indicator. There are 2 lines that form the above charts, namely MACD (12, 26) lines and Signal(9) line, while the histogram is calculated by subtracting Signal (9) from MACD (12,26). Histogram would fall to the negative territory whenever MACD (12, 26) is trending at a lower level than Signal (9) and rise to the positive territory whenever MACD (12,26) is trending at a higher level than Signal (9).

MACD (12, 26) is computed by subtracting the 26-day exponential moving average (EMA) of SOL closing price from its 12-day EMA. 
Signal (9) on the other hand is calculated as the 9-day EMA of MACD (12,26). 

As MACD (12, 26) goes higher away from Signal (9), it signifies that SOL is gaining momentum and whenever it goes trends at a lower level than Signal (9),it signifies that SOL is losing momentum. 

As of 12 Jan 2022, MACD is suggesting that SOL has just started to gain back its momentum after a large drawdown last week as BTC crashed.

4.3. Bollinger Band

Bollinger band is often being used by mean-reversion trader as a gauge to assess how undervalued or overvalued an asset is. Its chart made up of 4 lines, namely:

- SMA (20) (blue line), which is the 20-day simple moving average price of SOL
- Upper Band (orange line), which is computed by adding 2 standard deviations of SOL on SMA (20)
- Lower Band (red line) , which is computed by subtracting 2 standard deviations of SOL from SMA (20)
- Close (green line), which is the daily closing price of SOL

Whenever close line (green) touches the lower band (red), it indicates that SOL is corrected too much and is being traded at an undervalued level, representing a 'buy' opportunity. On the other hand, whenever close line (green) touches the upper band (orange), it indicates that SOL is gaining too much momentum and is being traded at an overvalued level, thus indicating a 'sell' opportunity. 

As of 12 Jan 2022, Bollinger Band is suggesting that SOL is neither oversold nor overbought.

4.4. Relative Strength Index (RSI)

Just like Bollinger Band, Relative Strength Index is often being used by mean-reversion trader as a gauge to assess how undervalued or overvalued an asset is. There are 2 psychological levels, i.e. 30 and 70 in RSI. Whenever the RSI reaches 30, it indicates that SOL is corrected too much and is being traded at an undervalued level, representing a 'buy' opportunity. On the other hand, whenever RSI reaches 70, it indicates that SOL is gaining too much momentum and is being traded at an overvalued level, thus indicating a 'sell' opportunity. 

As of 12 Jan 2022, RSI is suggesting that SOL is neither oversold nor overbought.

4.5. Price and Volume Analysis

Solana suffered a large sell-off in the earlier December 2021, where its price has seen dropping from USD 240 high to below USD 160 in the period of 2 weeks before gaining back to USD 200 again in the late December. However, it has then suffered another run of sell-off from USD 200 high to below USD 140 not too long ago. Overall, Solana's average daily active trading volume is decreasing. 

Based on the technical analysis presented above, quantdoge is neutral on SOL, but I could be wrong, hence please make your careful due diligence before making any financial decision.

5. Solana Risk Profile

Based on the 100-day 95% historical Value-at-Risk (VaR) profile of Solana defined above, SOL seems to trade at a higher risk level on 12 Jan 2022 as compared to 10 days before on 02 Jan 2022, with its biggest pullback being seen at -11.23% on a single day during the last 100 days. However, I could be wrong, hence please make your careful due diligence before making any financial decision.

The probability distribution chart of SOL has also shifted left, with lower probability of achieving more than 10% daily return but with a higher probability of losing more than 10% daily, indicating that SOL trade is becoming riskier than before.

6. Price Simulation for Solana

How did quantdoge simulation perform vs the actual SOL price movement over the last week ?

Over the last 7 days, SOL is trading near the median range of all quantdoge simulations, indicating that SOL is neither oversold nor overbought. 

7. SOL Community Analytics

Number of SOL Followers In The Last 30 Days

In the last 30 days alone, Solana followers have increased 12.80% from 1,130,198 to 1,274,907 on Twitter and grown 9.79 % from 107,810 to 118,362 on Reddit.

Daily increment of Solana Twitter followers peaked on 28 Dec 2021 and its daily increment of Reddit followers peaked on 05 Jan 2022.

There are on average 5,593 new followers daily on Solana Twitter and 363 new subscribers daily on its Reddit.

8. Google Trends Analytics

solana reached its peak in Google Search on 2021-09-05 with a Google Score of 100
Over the last quarter, solana Google Score has decreased 13.83 % from 63.25 to 54.5
Over the last 6 months, solana Google Score has increased 51.39 % from 36.0 to 54.5

Over the last month, solana is most saught after on Google from Gibraltar, followed by Turks & Caicos Islands and Cayman Islands.

These 3 British Overseas Territories are wealthy islands which offer low taxes to their residents and famous for their offshore banking services which usually being offered to high-net-worth individuals. A high interest from these islands could mean that Solana is gaining interest from high-net-worth individuals / hedge funds who manage their money, who usually buying/ selling tokens at very large quantities.

9. Developer Activity Analytics

Fork

Fork refers to the amount of time where the Github repo of current cryptocurrency is being copied. Higher fork number could mean that this cryptocurrency project is getting more interest in the developers community who likes to explore more on the deep technical of this project.

Solana forks increased 437.4% from 262 to 1,408 in the past year.

Star

Star refers to the number of developers who bookmark the Github repo of current cryptocurrency. Higher star number could mean that this cryptocurrency project is getting more general interest in the developers community.

Solana stars increased 497.79% from 1,130 to 6,755 in the past year.

Pull Request

Pull request contributor refers to developer who has made a successful improvements/ modifications on the Github repo of this current cryptocurrency project. Higher number of pull request contributors could mean that there is a high number of commitment given by developers to this cryptocurrency project.

However, a low number also could mean that the developer community of this project applies a strict standard when it comes to code review, so only developers who have published a high quality code with highly impactful features got approved.

Solana pull request contributors increased 187.95% from 83 to 239 in the past year.

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