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CoinGecko Research Report Crowns Solana as Best Blockchain of 2024
- An analysis of web traffic through the first few months of 2024 has seen Solana as the most popular DeFi crypto ecosystem.
- The Web3 giant accounted for nearly a half of all web searches and traffic through 2024, handily beating out Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain.
- However, not everyone believes the popularity is warranted given Solana’s outages over the past few weeks due to increased transaction activity.
It’s not quite the Oscars. Heck, it ain’t even the Logies. It’s not even really an awards party. But according to crypto analyst and portfolio tracker, CoinGecko, the Solana blockchain is leading all-comers in 2024.
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The methodology for selecting the “winner” was pretty simple – CoinGecko observed all “non-botted” web traffic over the past few months to determine which blockchain was the “most popular”. And given the network’s impressive price performance since the start of the year, it’s no surprise that Solana is topping the list.
Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain Popular While Concerns Rise Over Solana’s Sustainability
Solana solely accounted for a monstrous 49% of all “interest in blockchain ecosystems” throughout the first three months of this year. It is worth noting that Bitcoin was not included (due to its lack of DeFi), otherwise, that coin would no doubt have dominated the awards ceremony. Nevertheless, Solana taking up almost half of all traffic for Web3 crypto protocols is a testament to its resurgence from a disastrous 2022.
To put Solana’s success into context, the blockchain generated 400% more web traffic and “narrative” than the next highest project – Ethereum. Vitalik Buterin’s brainchild nabbed a 13% share of “interest”, while Binance Chain came in third with 5.38%.
Much of Solana’s price rise, and corresponding surge in activity, has come on the back of memecoins. Tokens like dogwifhat (WIF) and Book of Meme (BOME) have arrived from the clouds to post monthly gains in the thousands of percent. Although plenty of…er… more legitimate activity is going on within the Solana ecosystem (such as an increase in stablecoin market cap), relying on memecoins is likely unsustainable in the long run.
Additionally, some commentators have concerns over Solana’s viability as an Ethereum-killer due to its poor performance during periods of heightened traffic. As interest surged, so too did transactions on the network – and while Solana poses as an uber-scalable protocol, it was unable to keep up.
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Approximately 30-40% of transactions failed during the height of the memecoin frenzy – unacceptable for an ecosystem that wants to become the de facto DeFi platform for cryptocurrency.
On the flipside, Solana is constantly under development and has a strong team working to fix the visible issues. At this point, the project is a bit like Taylor Swift. Love it or hate it, you can’t deny that it’s seriously popular.
Author
Ben Knight
Ben Knight is a writer and editor from Melbourne with a passion for all things music and finance. He enjoys turning complex topics – especially the technical details of cryptocurrency – into digestible bites that anybody can understand. He acquired his Master’s in Writing, Editing and Publishing from RMIT in 2019 and has run his own creative writing business ever since.
