Solana SOL/USD price history up until Jul 20, 2024

Following NFT hype and growing demand in the DeFi community, the price of cryptocurrency Solana or SOL more than tripled during the summer of 2021. This had all but evaporated by the end of 2022, as a price of 173.89 U.S. dollars for SOL on July 20, 2024 was similar to the price of Solana in early 2021. The collapse of crypto trader FTX in 2022 especially impacted the cryptocurrency, as FTX and its sister firm Alameda Research sold a large amount of the coin in order to avoid bankruptcy. The Solana protocol is similar to Ethereum in that can allow for nun-fungible tokens to be created ('minted') or traded. Solana, however, uses a technology called 'PoH' or Proof of History, which allows it to reach high transaction speeds. The Solana Foundation - the creators of the protocol, based in Switzerland - claims they could reach up to 65,000 transactions per second compared to 16 for Ethereum. Additionally, Solano had no transaction fees or 'gas', unlike Ethereum, which had growing transaction costs. These two reasons combined - Solana being deemed cheaper and faster than Ethereum - turned this relatively young protocol into a breeding ground for NFT projects in August 2021.