Solana to Improve on 180% YTD Price Spike Amid New NFT Partnerships

SOL, the native asset of Solana, has risen by 187% as of this writing, as data from CoinMarketCap showed.

The price of the primary currency that facilitates the Solana blockchain is poised for further upside potential as Solana announced a string of partnerships related to the non-fungible token (NFT) sector.

On Monday, April 15, the official handle of Solana disclosed that popular sportswear brand Adidas and crypto project Stepn are teaming up to launch NFTs on Solana.

Breaking news: @Stepnofficial and @adidas are teaming up to bring adidas digital collectibles to Solana! 🔥👟

Step into the world of GameFi and get fit while doing it.

Learn more and join the movement👇 https://t.co/0pHuEXk3Wk

— Solana (@solana) April 15, 2024

Why did Stepn and Adidas choose Solana?

Solana is one of the major NFT blockchains on the market, trailing only Ethereum in the all-time rankings and accumulating over $5 billion, data from NFT aggregator CryptoSlam showed.

An NFT deployed on the chain under the Peppermints collection sold for $46,528, as of this writing. Moreover, the SMB NFT #1355 on the Solana blockchain is among the top five (5) highest-selling digital collections. #1355 sold for $2.1 million in 2021, emboldening Solana’s stance in the sector along with Ethereum, Ronin, and Polygon.

Therefore, it is no surprise that Stepn and Adidas have taken advantage of the scalable nature of the project to deploy their collections. The NFTs will be joining a range of other NFT collections, such as DeGods Solana, Mad Lads, Degenerate Ape Academy, Okay Bears, Aurorians, Froganas, and Tensorians.

Adidas collections have been nothing to write home about after reaching monthly highs of 15,000 in December 2021, and so has its monthly revenue.

Adidas NFT monthly volume reached a high of approximately $48 million within the same period, according to Dune Analytics data.

Solana is involved in a hackathon

In the crypto space, hackathons are social events that gather stakeholders from the industry, such as programmers and developers, to improve on or build new software programs.

Dubbed Bonkathon, this activity is geared towards improving BONK, the first dog meme-inspired coin on Solana. BONK competes directly with Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and others, such as Pepe Token (PEPE), for a share of the meme-inspired market, which is now worth more than $45 billion.

The event has been slated for April 29 to June 10 and will go a long way toward improving the fortunes of memecoins on the blockchain. BONK has already transformed the portfolios of holders by spiking by more than 250% year-to-date (YTD), and a rise in demand could also reflect positively in the valuation of its native asset SOL.

What’s in store for SOL?

As of 11:00 UTC on April 16, SOL is still trading below its all-time high price of $260.06. While the crypto winter that swept the market for more than two years led to the once-potential Ethereum Killer trading below $100, the rebounding of the market has so far led to a year-high of $209.70. This is why many analysts believe that increased demand based on new innovations and partnerships could propel SOL above its maximum price ceiling recorded in November 2021.

After four months into 2024, analyst Arslan Butt at FX Leaders believes SOL could surpass its ATH due to decentralized applications (dApps) on the blockchain, such as Marinade, Jito, Kamino, Raydium, and MarginFi, helping its total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) surpass $3.5 billion.

Like Bitcoin, Solana has institutional appeal, with GrayScale leading the pack. Experts at PricePrediction.net, Digital Coin Price, and CoinPedia, among others, foresee SOL making a run for $1,000 in the long term.