Solana retraces back to pre-Xmas prices as BNB retakes 4th spot

Solana has dropped to fourth place in terms of market cap after being surpassed by BNB. Despite a 120% monthly rise in December that saw its market value grow greater than Binance’s BNB (BNB $316), the price of Solana’s (SOL $101) coin fell in the days following Christmas. Solana’s price fell below $100 during the retracement before staying several hours close to over $101.According to TradingView data, Solana is currently changing hands for $105, down around 14% from its yearly high of $123, set on December 26. However, an unexpected 9% increase in the price of BNB has seen it restore its place as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Several SOL-based memecoins, especially Bonk (BONK) and Dogwifhat (WIF), have had extraordinary price activity in recent weeks, with rises of 650% and 123,000% between Nov. 22 and Dec. 22, respectively. However, both meme coins have since retraced more than 50% of their all-time highs, with both falling three days before Solana’s yearly high on December 26. Parallel to the outsized gains in Solana’s price was an increase in trading activity on the network, which momentarily saw trading volumes on SOL-based decentralized exchanges (DEXs) surpass Ethereum for the first time.

The Solana decentralized exchange (DEX) has experienced a significant decrease in trade volume over the last 24 hours, currently standing at $1.1 billion. DefiLlama data reveals that this accounts for approximately half of Ethereum’s trading volume, which currently stands at $2 billion. Simultaneously, the price of Ether (ETH) has experienced a 5% increase in the last week, reaching $2,275.This strong weekly performance has encouraged many traders and analysts to speculate about the possibility of Ethereum outperforming its competitors shortly.