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 hold a long position in Solana (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. 

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 !!!

• Solana records over $5.5 billion inflows in a day following turbulent week
  Statistic as of 2021-12-18 06:50 AM EDT: 42 positive votes, 5 negative votes
  (Extracted from Crypto Panic)
  
  
• Solana Ventures announces new $150 million fund for blockchain gaming
  Statistic as of 2021-12-18 06:50 AM EDT: 40 positive votes, 3 negative votes
  (Extracted from Crypto Panic)
  
  
• Solana ($SOL) Could Rally Up to 260% By Q1 2022, Kraken Suggests
  Statistic as of 2021-12-18 06:50 AM EDT: 50 positive votes, 20 negative votes
  (Extracted from Crypto Panic)

1B. Top 3 Bad News for SOL HODLERS !!!

• $2.6 Billion Bug in Solana Program Library Disclosed: Details
  Statistic as of 2021-12-18 06:51 AM EDT: 14 positive votes, 51 negative votes
  (Extracted from Crypto Panic)
  
  
• Solana library bug could have seen attackers stealing $27 million an hour
  Statistic as of 2021-12-18 06:51 AM EDT: 9 positive votes, 44 negative votes
  (Extracted from Crypto Panic)
  
  
• Solana suffers network slowdown, raising questions around proof of history
  Statistic as of 2021-12-18 06:51 AM EDT: 1 positive vote, 32 negative votes
  (Extracted from Crypto Panic)

2. How Solana Performs Relative to Other Cryptos ?

As of 17 Dec 2021, Solana has made a cumulative return of 17,388.03% since Jan 2020 and 8,995.59%  since Jan 2021. It is currently the  greatest performing crypto asset since Jan 2021 as compared to the other cryptocurrencies presented above.

3. Technical Analysis on Solana

3.1. 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 17 Dec 2021, VWAP is suggesting that SOL starts to gather some momentum after suffering a big drop days earlier.

3.2. 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 17 Dec 2021, MACD is suggesting that SOL starts to gather some momentum after suffering a big drop days earlie

3.3. 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 17 Dec 2021, Bollinger Band is suggesting that SOL has been oversold.

3.4. 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 17 Dec 2021, RSI is suggesting that SOL has been oversold.

Based on the technical analysis presented above, quantdoge is bullish on SOL while cautioning and monitoring on its network security, but I could be wrong, hence please make your careful due diligence before making any financial decision. 

4. 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 17 Dec 2021 as compared to 10 days before on 07 Dec 2021, with its biggest pullback being seen at -14.02% 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.

5. Monte Carlo 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 percentile of all quantdoge simulations, indicating that SOL is neither oversold nor overbought, trading at a normal price level. 

6. SOL Community Analytics

Number of SOL Followers In The Last 30 Days

In the last 30 days alone, Solana followers have grown 17.59 % from 965,244 to 1,135,004 on Twitter and grown 14.35 % from 95,128 to 108,781 on Reddit.

Daily increment of Solana Twitter followers peaked on 07 Dec 2021 and its daily increment of Reddit followers peaked on 01 Dec 2021.

7. 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 1.79 % from 56.0 to 55.0
Over the last 6 months, solana Google Score has increased 272.88 % from 14.75 to 55.0

"solana" is mainly sought on Google from Turks & Caicos Islands, follow by Gibraltar and Liechtenstein this month.

8. 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 386.67% from 255to 1241 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 471.36% from 1086 to 6205 in the past year.

Pull Request

Pull request contributor refers to developer who has made a successful improvement/ modification 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 169.51% from 82 to 221 in the past year.

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