Solana (SOL), currently the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap—trailing behind Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), USDT, Binance Coin (BNB), XRP, and USDC—may be on the path of surpassing its closest competitor, XRP. This potential shift is largely attributable to the intensifying infrastructure race between the two projects, as highlighted by market analyst Alex Carchidi from The Motley Fool in a Tuesday report. The Race For Tokenization Capital While XRP holds a larger market cap of approximately $87 billion compared to Solana’s $50 billion at the time of writing, both assets are vying to become the backbone for the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), such as stocks and commodities converted for trading on blockchains. Carchidi notes that Solana’s strengths lie in its speed and cost-effectiveness, making it particularly suited for managing tokenized assets that require rapid movement at scale—like stocks, bonds, and commodity contracts. The Solana platform currently has around $272 million in tokenized stocks circulating within its ecosystem, marking a 14% increase over the 30-day period that ended on March 5. Related Reading: What’s Fueling Hyperliquid’s Surge? HYPE Outperforms Top 100 Cryptos In Latest Rally Predictions suggest the total market value of tokenized stocks could climb to over $38 billion by 2035, up from about $1 billion today, indicating a substantial growth area ripe for competition. The argument for Solana’s potential to overtake XRP hinges on its aspiration to become the central hub for trading equities, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and institutional funds around the clock—all at minimal costs. Carchidi asserts that Solana doesn’t necessarily need to capture 100% of the tokenized assets market to see significant price appreciation. Its current market cap is already so close to that of XRP’s that even a modest gain at XRP’s expense could tip the scales in Solana’s favor. Carchidi acknowledges that Solana may indeed flip XRP. However, the path for SOL to surpass XRP is not without challenges. XRP’s Edge Against Solana At present, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) holds approximately $453 million in tokenized assets specifically available for trading, rather than just for record keeping. The stablecoin base on XRPL is currently around $432 million. A substantial portion of XRP’s tradeable tokenized assets comprises US Treasury bills and government bonds valued at about $294 million. On the surface, this setup may not seem to threaten Solana’s growth trajectory. Yet, the analyst contends that XRP has its own advantages. Known for its speed and low transaction costs, XRP also benefits from a robust compliance infrastructure that is integrated into its blockchain. Related Reading: BitMine Acquires 60,000 ETH; Chair Discusses Outlook For Ethereum And Crypto Prices This allows financial institutions looking to tokenize assets—such as bonds, stocks, or securities—to avoid the time-consuming process of developing a compliance framework from scratch. As a result, XRP may attract more capital inflows related to tokenization over the next few years. Despite these challenges, the analyst believes that Solana would eventually outperform XRP in terms of valuation, possibly in 2030 and beyond, owing to its plans for a larger ecosystem. At the time of writing, Solana was trading at roughly $88.48, up 2.7% in the previous 24 hours. XRP, on the other hand, has surpassed SOL’s growth over the same period, with gains approaching 5% and the token trading at $1.43. Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com
On-chain data shows signs of an altcoin winter may be emerging as Ethereum, Solana, and other cryptocurrencies have seen a decline in activity. Altcoins Are Observing A Drop In On-Chain Activity In a new thread on X, institutional DeFi solutions provider Sentora (formerly IntoTheBlock) has talked about how interest in altcoins has been cooling off recently. Related Reading: CryptoQuant Head Reveals Reason Behind Bearish Bitcoin Trend The on-chain indicator of relevance here is the “Active Addresses,” which measures, as its name suggests, the total number of addresses that are participating in some kind of transaction activity on a given network every day. When the value of this metric rises, it means more users are making transfers on the blockchain. Such a trend implies trading interest in the cryptocurrency may be on the rise. On the other hand, the indicator witnessing a decline suggests investors may be shifting their attention elsewhere as they are reducing their transaction activity on the network. Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in this indicator for Ethereum, the largest of the altcoins, over the last few years: As displayed in the above graph, the Ethereum Active Addresses metric was at a high of 589,000 in late July. Since then, activity on the network has gone downhill, with there now being 488,000 addresses making transactions, around 17% lower than the peak. “Fewer users interacting on ETH indicates weaker on-chain demand, a pattern seen in past bear-market phases,” explained Sentora. Solana, another prominent altcoin, has been showing a similar trend. How the monthly value of the Active Addresses has changed for SOL over the last few years | Source: Sentora on X From the chart, it’s clear that the monthly version of the Active Addresses witnessed a notable decline for SOL during Q3 2025. More specifically, active users on the blockchain dropped by about 30% in this period. “Solana has been the out-performer this cycle, but momentum is cooling,” noted the analytics firm. Memecoins have been hit hard in the recent market downturn, and the same has held true for their on-chain activity. Dogecoin, the largest meme-based token, has only witnessed a slight decrease in Active Addresses, but Pepe has gone through a drawdown of 85%. “This drop shows how quickly speculative user bases can evaporate,” said Sentora. Related Reading: Crypto Analyst Maps Out Dream Ethereum Scenario To $8,000 Finally, the analytics firm has also highlighted that DeFi trading volume has started to trend down as well. The metric is still relatively strong compared to other cryptocurrency-related indicators, but a change in direction is apparent. With the crash in prices and downturn in on-chain activity, is the altcoin sector entering a season of winter? “It’s too early to tell but the current data echoes past cycles,” noted Sentora. “We are already 6+ months into an altcoin slowdown, with winter signs popping up.” Ethereum Price Ethereum has plunged alongside the rest of the market during the past day as its price has retraced to $3,300. Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView.com