Arthur Hayes has a clear answer to the market’s favorite bar fight. In an August 21 interview with Ran Neuner, the BitMEX co-founder said both Ethereum and Solana will rally hard, but he is explicitly tilted toward ETH for the remainder of the cycle. “Do I believe Solana is going to go up? Absolutely it’s going to go up. Do I believe it’s going to go up more than ETH? I don’t know. Probably not,” Hayes said. When pressed on portfolio construction, he didn’t hedge: “In terms of a position… you’d be more overweight ETH? Correct. Yes.” Ethereum Vs. Solana: Who Wins This Cycle? Neuner framed the context that has flipped the conversation from “Solana-only” to an Ethereum-led trade, citing a sequence of catalysts—from stablecoins to marquee advocates—that has turned ETH into “the darling asset of Wall Street.” Hayes didn’t contest the premise. Instead, he described the contest between the two chains as a “race” increasingly defined by the scale of capital now zeroing in on Ethereum: “ETH is a bigger asset to move, but there’s a lot of money chasing it. So it’s going to be [an] interesting race.” In other words, size is not a bug if flows are thick enough; it’s the feature that channels the largest bid. Related Reading: Altseason Things: Ethereum Perps Volume Sets New Record Against Bitcoin That flows-first view also explains why Hayes sees ETH’s upside accelerating once resistance is convincingly cleared. Responding to Neuner’s observation that Bitcoin sits well above its prior all-time high while ETH had been “struggling to break,” Hayes raised his sights beyond catch-up toward open-ended momentum: “I think ETH goes to $10,000 [or] 20,000 before the end of the cycle… once it’s broken through, then… it’s a gap of air to the upside.” He added that on shorter time frames, “the chart says it’s going higher now,” noting he had “bought back some of the ETH” he previously sold. None of this means Hayes is bearish on Solana. He disclosed he advises Upexi, a Nasdaq-listed company with a Solana-focused treasury, and reiterated his expectation that SOL will benefit from the same risk-on currents: “They’re both going to go up. The question is which one goes up more.” But even with that proximity to the Solana ecosystem, he returned to the relative case: “Do I believe [Solana]’s going to go up more than ETH?… Probably not.” Related Reading: Whale Loads Up $300M Ethereum Onchain: Did He Just Catch The Bottom? Neuner summarized the narrative shift bluntly—ETH “caught this massive Wall Street narrative,” with stablecoins, tokenized assets and high-profile champions such as Joseph Lubin and Tom Lee putting a megaphone behind Ethereum, after a period when “it’s a SOL cycle” dominated discourse. Hayes’ answer was not to relitigate the tech stack—Neuner even joked about Solana as the “fast monolithic chain”—but to anchor the ETH-over-SOL call in the mechanics of capital formation and passive demand now assembling around Ethereum’s market structure. In his telling, as institutional vehicles and public ETH treasury companies marshal fresh inflows, the “bigger asset to move” becomes the natural sink for the thickest flows. Hayes’ comparative view therefore rests on three on-record pillars. First, positioning: he is overweight ETH versus SOL on a percentage basis. Second, flows: he expects more money to chase ETH in this phase of the cycle, despite (and because of) its larger base. Third, trajectory: once ETH sustains a breakout, he sees “the sky’s the limit” dynamics taking over, with a cycle target of $10,000–$20,000 for ETH. The respect for Solana’s upside remains, but the winner—on Hayes’ numbers and his own book—is Ethereum. At press time, ETH traded at $4,285. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
Fidelity Digital Assets, a subsidiary of global financial services firm Fidelity Investments, has released a new paper titled “2025 Look Ahead: Is it ‘too late’ to enter digital assets?” The publication dedicates significant attention to the ongoing competition between Ethereum and Solana. Authored by Max Wadington, the section “Ethereum Outlook” provides a close look at fundamental metrics, upcoming network upgrades, and the broader implications for investors heading into 2025. Solana Vs. Ethereum In 2025 In a notable excerpt comparing Solana and Ethereum, Wadington explains: “We think fundamentals are most important for long-term investors. With that said, Ethereum has strong developer activity, total value locked (TVL), and stablecoin supply. Comparatively, Solana’s revenue and TVL are improving at a faster rate than Ethereum’s and seem to have captured significant community mind share this past year.” One factor complicating Solana’s growth trajectory is the provenance of its revenue, which is significantly influenced by memecoin trading. Wadington notes that while “a similar argument could be made for Ethereum’s main use case being Uniswap,” the fundamentals of Ethereum “are slightly less dependent on speculation and may be less volatile over the long term.” Thus, neither platform is risk-free, but Ether’s broader utility may afford it more resilience in bear markets. Related Reading: Solana Back Above Weekly & Monthly Support Levels – Analyst Expects New ATH Despite this, short-term narratives and technical milestones could tip market sentiment in Solana’s favor in 2025. Specifically, Solana’s upcoming Firedancer upgrade “promises a substantial increase in transactions per second (TPS), which may directly enhance Solana’s value proposition.” Ethereum’s Prague/Electra upgrade, meanwhile, “is expected to generate less community hype as it does not significantly impact ether’s value proposition.” Another key differentiator is Ethereum’s presence in US based spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), a channel of accessibility that helps drive institutional and retail demand. However, Wadington highlights that this advantage “may disappear at some point under the Trump administration,” pending regulatory developments that “could either solidify Ether’s advantage in this area or completely remove it.” Related Reading: Solana Rally Stalls: Pullback To Key Support Signals Potential Correction Ultimately, Wadington suggests that fundamentals may reassert themselves over hype as the market progresses: “Although Solana appears to have more short-term tailwinds than Ether, its relative performance could provide significant upside for ether, similar to how Solana’s prior underperformance provided a substantial runway leading into 2024. As prices get extended throughout this bull market, investors will likely increasingly focus on fundamentals, which may sway them back into ether.” Has Ethereum Made A Misstep? Turning specifically to Ethereum, the paper delves into ongoing debates around Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap. In Wadington’s words: “The rollup-centric roadmap was designed to scale Ethereum while keeping the Layer 1 blockchain easy to run. However, since the Deneb-Cancun upgrade, there has been debate about this decision as Layer 1 fees have plummeted.” While lower fees might appear detrimental to direct revenue for Ether holders, Fidelity’s position is that the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term revenue drop. Wadington reiterates: “We continue to believe that revenue from the blob market is unlikely to offset the dramatic decrease in revenue created by the previous upgrade in the short term, yet it still carries long-term positive benefits through improved network effects.” In this view, Ethereum’s ecosystem stands to benefit from a mutualistic relationship with Layer 2s, which inherit Ethereum’s security and liquidity. The foundation’s priority, as Wadington writes, is ensuring “near-zero fees to keep Layer 2s within the Ethereum ecosystem.” This could foster more specialized Layer 2 projects in 2025, as developers customize entire tech stacks for niche use cases such as the Ethereum Name Service (ENS). At press time, Solana traded at $197. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
Solana (SOL), the fifth largest cryptocurrency in the industry, saw a notable resurgence over the weekend, in line with the broader market rally and Bitcoin’s (BTC) rebound towards the $63,000 mark for the first time in over a week. SOL’s price has successfully recovered from the losses of the past few months, surpassing the $150 level and overcoming key resistance walls, coupled with an optimistic statement from Daniel Cheung, co-founder of the hedge fund Syncracy Capital, who believes that SOL is exhibiting similar fractal patterns reminiscent of the third quarter of 2021, potentially leading to explosive gains. More Gains Ahead For SOL In a social media post on Sunday, Cheung expressed his bullish perspective on SOL’s price action as the token closed the past week on a bullish note, also drawing comparisons to the third quarter of 2021, from which SOL’s price began its rise from a low of $27 at the end of July that year, eventually reaching its current all-time high of $259 in November 2021. Cheung also drew parallels to the fourth quarter of 2020, highlighting that in both cases, the most significant returns are just around the corner, suggesting that further price gains are on the cards in the last half of the year, as was the case in 2021. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Surges Past $63,000: The Key Reasons Cheung further emphasized that Solana is expected to remain a hub for on-chain activity throughout the rest of this market cycle due to its accessibility to retail investors, making it an appealing asset. The potential introduction of a Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF), which is anticipated to have a substantial impact on SOL’s price, coupled with the increasing probability of Trump’s re-election, serves as additional fuel for the Solana ecosystem, Syncracy Capital’s co-founder stated. Solana Market Cap Projection In an interesting observation, Daniel Cheung also stated that he believes the Solana ecosystem can ” likely” reach 50% of Ethereum’s market capitalization this cycle as optimism around the blockchain grows. Currently, Solana boasts a market cap of $71 billion, significantly lower than Ethereum’s $403 billion. Still, according to Cheung’s analysis, if SOL were to reach 50% of Ethereum’s market cap, its market capitalization would reach a staggering $280 billion, triggering an exponential rise in SOL’s price and pushing it to new all-time highs. Related Reading: XRP Price Confirms Bullish Reversal: Crypto Analyst Forecasts ‘God Candles’ Ahead It remains to be seen whether this latter scenario will play out, with expectations of a more favorable regulatory framework in the US, with the potential for new legislation for the industry with a Trump victory in the November election and the potential approval of the anticipated Solana ETF market. Nonetheless, Solana is trading at $152 at the time of writing, up over 6% in the 24-hour time frame and a significant 438% year-to-date. Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com
In the first quarter of the year, Solana-based meme coins have emerged as the frontrunners, surpassing Ethereum’s meme coin ecosystem and artificial intelligence (AI) tokens, according to a recent report by market data platform CoinMarketCap. This shift in popularity signifies a change in dynamics within the cryptocurrency market, with meme coins gaining traction and challenging previously dominant narratives such as smart contracts, decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Solana Ecosystem Dominates Growth Chart The CoinMarketCap report highlights that the Solana ecosystem has consistently topped the growth chart for the past eight months, with over 20 new tokens introduced in Q2 alone. Ethereum’s ecosystem followed closely behind with 14 new tokens, while Derivatives and Stablecoins witnessed relatively lesser growth with 5 and 4 new tokens, respectively. This surge in Solana-based token offerings indicates a growing interest in the network and its potential. Related Reading: Toncoin Price Inches Closer To All-Time High – Will TON Hit $8 This Week? Solana’s meme coin ecosystem, in particular, has gained significant momentum in price performance and popularity since October 2023. Although Ethereum remains the dominant blockchain, Solana’s growing prominence suggests a noteworthy trend in the crypto space. Interestingly, SOL memes have significantly outperformed ETH memes, delivering an average return of 8,469% compared to 962% for Ethereum, as seen in the chart below. As “speculative capital” from other chains rushed into Solana, attracted by the explosive rallies of tokens like dogwifhat (WIF) and Bonk Inu (BONK), more meme coins experienced price surges, attracting additional attention and capital. The top winners in the meme coin space include the cat characters MEW, POPCAT, and Book of Meme (MEME). These tokens have outperformed even the most popular ones like WIF, BONK, Ethereum’s Pepe coin (PEPE), and Shiba Inu (SHIB). Notably, political memes also emerged as a popular subcategory, with the leading MAGA (TRUMP) meme coin gaining over 5100% year-to-date, largely due to vocal support for crypto from former President Donald Trump and the acceptance of crypto for campaign donations. Ethereum Tops Fee Income Rankings Despite Solana’s significant gains, Ethereum continues to dominate the Layer 1 (L1) smart contracts market, representing 62.11% of the major L1s. The report notes that Ethereum’s recent milestone was propelled by the SEC’s approval of Ethereum Spot ETFs. However, Binance Smart Chain (BNB) and Solana have also gained traction, adding $42 billion and $18 billion to their market share among L1 networks. Solana currently leads with over 1.6 million active daily addresses, followed by BNB with 1 million active addresses. Related Reading: Avalanche On The Verge: Will AVAX Break Out And Reach $65? In Q2, Ethereum experienced record low gas fees, reaching levels not seen since 2020 due to the growing adoption of Layer 2 solutions and the market excitement surrounding Solana-based meme coins. Despite representing 62% of the market cap among major L1s, Ethereum accounted for 70% of the daily revenue, generating approximately $2.7 million. Solana ranked second with around $900,000 in daily revenue. According to Lookonchain, Ethereum topped the fee income rankings in the past year with $2.728 billion, followed by Bitcoin with $1.302 billion. Other notable networks include Tron ($459.39 million), Solana ($241.29 million), Binance Smart Chain ($176.56 million), Avalanche ($68.83 million), zkSync Era ($59.77 million), Optimism ($40.4 million), and Polygon ($23.91 million). Despite both platforms experiencing success in various financial metrics and growth charts, Solana’s native token, SOL, has significantly outperformed Ethereum’s ETH token. As of the current trading price, SOL is valued at $143.25, showcasing a year-to-date growth of 650%. ETH has seen a more modest surge of 68% during the same time frame, currently trading at $3,310. Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com