Solana is experiencing a significant surge in network activity, signaling a bullish sentiment among crypto traders towards SOL. In the past seven days, SOL has seen a 25% increase in value, reclaiming the $100 level after briefly dipping below $80. The recent upswing is accompanied by a surge in network activity in anticipation of the upcoming Jupiter token airdrop scheduled for Wednesday.
At present, Solana’s price stands at around $103, up approximately 2% for the day. While it is still a long way from its 2021 peak of nearly $260, SOL has made a remarkable recovery from its lows in late 2022 when it plummeted to about $8. Over the past year, the cryptocurrency has surged by 333%.
The increased network activity on Solana can be attributed to several factors, including lower transaction fees and faster transaction speeds compared to Ethereum. In fact, decentralized exchanges (DEXes) on the Solana network have surpassed Ethereum in terms of trading volume over a 24-hour period, according to data from DeFi Llama.
In addition, various on-chain metrics have witnessed a surge in recent days, as indicated by data from Hello Moon. The number of daily active users with a SOL wallet balance has increased, and last Friday saw a record-breaking number of new wallets used for signing transactions, reaching nearly 750,000.
The positive momentum in SOL’s price and network activity coincides with the forthcoming launch of JUP, the official token of Jupiter, a DEX aggregator. The highly anticipated token will be available to claim for free by almost a million wallets starting on January 31.
Jupiter’s token launchpad was put to the test over the weekend with the introduction of WEN, a meme coin that eligible wallets could claim for free. However, more than 271 billion WEN tokens went unclaimed by the Monday deadline, representing 39% of the airdrop allocation and 27% of the total token supply. In response, the creators of WEN burned the unclaimed tokens, reducing the total supply. Nevertheless, traders quickly turned bearish on the meme coin following the initial hype, resulting in a 52% decrease in its value since Monday morning. Currently, WEN is priced at $0.000086.