Bank Of America Suggests Solana Could Become The Visa Of Crypto

The fourth quarter has been a chaotic one for cryptocurrency prices, with the majority of coins reaching all-time highs before plummeting back down in the last few weeks. Though, it does look like prices have bottomed out and are beginning to stabilize. 

With investment companies and the fast-moving fintech industry blossoming, Bank of America has weighed in and singled out one cryptocurrency that could become influential in the coming years. A recent note from the financial giants’ digital asset strategist Alkesh Shah said that Solana (SOL) could become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem”. 

What was said about Solana by the Bank?

The analyst discussed the merits of Solana’s blockchain, highlighting the fact that there are already 400 successful decentralized projects operational on Solana. He went on to say "Its ability to provide high throughput, low cost and ease of use creates a blockchain optimized for consumer use cases like micropayments, DeFi, NFTs, decentralized networks (Web3) and gaming."

One of the most notable qualities of the blockchain is the speed of transactions, which was something else Shah picked up on in his note "These innovations allow for the processing of an industry-leading ~65,000 transactions per second with average transaction fees of $0.00025 while remaining relatively decentralized and secure."

What makes Solana unique?

Solana is relatively young, first launched in March 2020 as a decentralized blockchain for highly-scalable applications. As of today (January 13, 2022), Solana is the fifth-largest cryptocurrency in the world, with a market cap just shy of $50 billion and hovering around a price of $156. 

Solana offers unique smart contracts, which are essential in building decentralized applications, such as blockchain-based banks, and the prevailing NFT marketplace—minting more than 5.7 million NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

Solana’s value has been recognized in the last 12 months, with a whole host of investors coming in and pushing the value of the blockchain beyond expectations, increasing a staggering 4,000%. While there are aspects of Solana that can be compared to the second-biggest blockchain on the market Ethereum, the fact the market capitalization is just over a tenth of Ethereum’s is evidence of the work Solana needs to do to compete with the industry leaders.