Solana, which has been described as the Ethereum Killer for its cheap, fast transactions, has experienced a parabolic increase in account holders, up 300 percent since its last upgrade, according to a new report. 

Released in April 2019, the cryptocurrency started trading at less than $1 per coin. Since then, it has exploded. Its current CoinMarketCap ranking is No. 9 with a market capitalization of $31.325 billion. The Solana price more than tripled during the summer of 2021. It stated 2022 trading at around $178 and is now down to $98.58 as of this writing after the massive crypto market selloff in January.

In early February, Solana launched a new payments protocol, Solana Pay, which allows merchants to accept payments in cryptocurrencies directly from consumers. Solana Pay will accept USDC, SOL, and other tokens on the Solana blockchain.

Its daily active signers have increased by 300 percent since the last update in late September, according to Our Network report, a weekly newsletter focused on on-chain analytics.

Unique signers peaked at 299,000 in late January but dropped to 232,000 after the network’s most recent bout with degraded performance, MaxBit reported. Solana’s long-term uptrend was bolstered when its two top wallets – Solflare and Phantom – launched their own mobile apps.

Many people are finding Solana more attractive as an investment than other cryptocurrencies including NFL player Ndamukong Suh, a defensive end with 2021 Super Bowl Champions the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. According to Suh, Solana is better than Ethereum, what he described as a “remake-the-world” kind of company.

“I’ve been pretty quiet on my involvement in the crypto space. I like to do my diligence. But I have 100 percent conviction in this business. Solana is a remake the world kind of company,” Suh tweeted in January.

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Solana’s non-fungible token (NFT) ecosystem, Metaplex, also helped ignite the surge in activity, Crypto Gazette reported.

“The Solana NFT market exploded into relevance in the second half of 2021 and carried that momentum into 2022 with a market cap just shy of $1 billion and seven-day volume of $46 million. Since Metaplex protocol went live on Solana, cumulative unique NFT owners grew from 28,000 to almost 2.5 million,” the report said.

It added, “The number of NFT launches on Solana has skyrocketed, with more than 8 million total NFTs being minted using Metaplex. Since September, there’s been a significant increase in the number of wallets with more than one NFT, which recently surpassed 500,000.”

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