Solana (SOL) surpassed Cardano (ADA) and leading stablecoin Tether (USDT) to become the 4th-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

At press fourth dimension, the cyberspace worth of total SOL tokens in circulation was a little over $76 billion, falling but behind Binance Coin's (BNB) $109 billion, Ether'southward (ETH) $540 billion and Bitcoin's (BTC) $i.17 trillion.

Top ten cryptocurrencies by market place cap as of 13:thirty UTC, Nov. 7. Source: Messari

Meanwhile, ADA's and Tether's market caps came out to be $66.39 billion and $74.42 billion, respectively.

$100-million fund launch boosts SOL's bullish outlook

Solana's market place capitalization surged as its native token, SOL, rose to yet another record high. On November. 7, SOL'due south toll crossed above $262 for the first time in history, primarily owing to a market-broad cost rally that saw other top cryptocurrencies ink similar gains.

Meanwhile, SOL received boosted bullish cues from Solana'due south foray into Web 3.0 gaming evolution via its venture capital arm. Dubbed Solana Ventures, the firm announced Friday that information technology, alongside FTX and Lightspeed Venture Partners, would invest $100 meg into the game studios and technology sector.

In doing then, Solana Ventures aims to attract desktop and mobile video game developers to build their projects atop its public blockchain, thereby raising the prospect of higher SOL adoption. A similar adoption boom in 2022 helped send SOL'south price up by about 17,500% twelvemonth-to-date — from $1.51 to $262.45.

Solana ecosystem in a nutshell. Source: Solanians Telegram Aqueduct

The uptrend surfaced as speculators started treating Solana as i of the most serious challengers to Ethereum, the leading smart contracts platform grappling with higher gas fees and network congestion issues.

For example, Solana claims that information technology could process fifty,000–sixty,000 transactions per second (TPS) for an boilerplate transaction fee of $0.00025. In comparison, Ethereum transacts 15–30 TPS, with its median transaction toll ranging between $4 and $21.

Smart contract platforms comparison. Source: Solwealth

Paul Veradittakit, a partner at Pantera Capital, told Bloomberg that Solana is "the top competition" to Ethereum, Cardano and other smart contract platforms, regarding "programmer adoption and momentum."

Related: Solana battles Cardano for the tiptop-five spot as SOL market place cap crosses $70B mark

Nevertheless, Solana also exhibited signs of resource exhaustion — i.east., a lack of prioritization among SOL transactions and a lower number of validators that led to an 18-hour-long network outage in September. If not fixed, it could raise the risks of reversed or altered transactions beyond the Solana network.

Correction risks for SOL's price

Despite its latest rally to an all-time high, SOL risks undergoing a correction due to at least two bearish indicators.

First, SOL's price has been forming a rising wedge, a technical pattern that typically results in lower prices. And second, the cryptocurrency has likewise been confirming a bearish divergence between its rising price and declining momentum (equally confirmed by lower highs on its daily relative strength index).

SOL/USD daily toll chart featuring ascent wedge and price-momentum divergence. Source: TradingView

A break below the wedge's lower trendline, if accompanied past an increase in volume, would risk sending SOL's price lower past every bit much equally the maximum pinnacle. That roughly puts SOL'due south downside target to levels between $205 and $91.52, depending on the level at which the bearish breakout begins.

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