Crypto Market Rises: SOL, LINK Surge While ETH Dominance Wanes

Crypto’s October rally has gained momentum in the past few days, with altcoins Solana (SOL) and Chainlink (LINK) leading the charge. SOL tokens are up 33% on the week – now sitting at $31.81 (AUD $50.21), while LINK tokens have surged nearly 40%, leaving them at $10.47 (AUD $16.53). Meanwhile, the king of altcoins, Ethereum (ETH), has seen its dominance over the market fall, with investors flocking from the ecosystem to seek out alternatives.

Chainlink Is Pushing Asset Tokenisation to the Mainstream

The Chainlink project has been very busy over the past couple of months. The team partnered with ANZ to deliver an AUD-based stablecoin to Aussie institutions, while significantly upgrading its blockchain and on-chain staking mechanism. The protocol is heavily linked with real-world asset tokenisation, which many experts believe to be the bridge that will connect decentralised finance (DeFi) with traditional markets and truly brings crypto to the mainstream.

There are signs that Chainlink’s uptrend will slow soon, as investors look to consolidate profits on big exchanges like Binance. A significant number of LINK tokens have made their way to centralised platforms over the past week, suggesting that traders are cashing out at least some of their holdings.

While LINK has been the most impressive big-name altcoin of the past few weeks, Solana hasn’t been far behind it. Dubbed the “Ethereum-killer”, the smart contract ecosystem has lived up to its name amid impressive partnerships with Visa and Circle (USDC). 

The renewed investor interest spilled into the Solana ecosystem, with the blockchain recording $15.5 million (AUD $24.47 million) of inflow. This marked a 420% increase in weekly activity on the chain, suggesting that consumer appetite for alternatives to Ethereum is starting to rise.

Ethereum Losing Its Grip

From a price perspective, Ethereum tokens are basking in the weekly rally too – up 10% over the past seven days. But the fundamentals of the project are starting to weaken amid competition and interest in other altcoins.

The network is still the second-largest behind only Bitcoin (BTC), but its ecosystem has now reached the lowest Total Value Locked (TVL) since late 2022. This means investors are removing their money from Ether staking products, as well as DeFi applications that operate on the protocol. The result has been an outpouring of money from ETH into other blockchains (like Solana), with $7.1 million (AUD $11.21 million) moved from the ecosystem in the past 7 days.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Ethereum is on its way down. Competition is healthy for the crypto market, and the continued development of Layer 2 (L2) solutions for the ETH blockchain means it is becoming more scalable. But for now, investors appear to be testing the waters with riskier alternatives.