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I'm going to test my crystal ball abilities this year.
As we turn the page on 2024, here are Solana's five predictions for 2025:
1. Elon Musk's X will debut native Solana code
It's time. When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, Crypto fans speculated The Dogecoin-loving billionaire will integrate cryptocurrencies into the social media platform. Those expectations have been so far Canceled by MuskBut with the incoming Trump administration expected to ease US cryptocurrency regulations and bring crypto-friendly votes to the table, I believe Token X is finally on the way.
Crypto Twitter is still a vibrant community, so there will be demand for such a token, and Musk's other companies It is known to contain cryptocurrencies on their budgets. X Premium users can pay for their subscriptions using the X token, which Musk can enter and exit cheaply with the help of his stablecoin. Buddies At the bridge. Solana has high throughput and low transaction fees to make all of this possible.
And to sweeten the deal, Solana Blinks can make e-commerce happen natively on X without users leaving the app — a feature TikTok recently discovered success. If X wants to be an app for everything, why doesn't that moniker extend to currency as well?
2. The market cap of Solana's stablecoin will quadruple
Solana's volume and demand rebounded significantly in 2024, but stablecoins remained dormant. The blockchain currently has nearly $5 billion in stables, ranking it fifth among blockchains behind Ethereum, Tron, BSC, and Arbitrum, according to DeFiLlama.
This is partly because Solana transactions do not often require stablecoin pairs for actions like memecoin trading, but stables can play an important role in other use cases like DePIN or payments. with Startups like Perina Lulo focused on growing the Solana stable pie and exporters such as PayPal and Sky launch On this series, Solana could be poised for significant growth in 2024.
I believe Solana's stablecoin market capitalization will exceed $20 billion by the end of the year, which equates to a 4x increase from its current levels. This would leave Solana far behind Ethereum, which has about $110 billion worth of stablecoins at the moment.
3. Solana ETFs will be approved but will underperform ETH
Well, time for some cold water: I'm not bullish on Solana ETFs.
I think it's more likely that Solana ETFs will be approved this year as the Paul Atkins-led SEC takes a less stringent stance on defining crypto assets as securities, but I don't think it's likely that SOL ETFs will find all that much demand.
Cryptocurrency ETFs A reason to be It gives investors regulated access to cryptocurrencies within things like brokerage accounts. With Bitcoin, this makes sense. Its “digital gold” narrative is difficult, as it is the largest cryptocurrency ever, and curious boomers may be interested in allocating 1% of their portfolios to see where things go. Ether ETFs have done well, partly due to the newness of the products, but it was just a problem A little harder to sell investors on it.
Solana is more decadent and less volatile than BTC or ETH. It appears that a lot of SOL buyers are more likely to join via Phantom or Coinbase than through their retirement accounts. By the time SOL ETFs are approved, the BTC/ETH pool, Litecoin, HBAR, and possibly XRP will also have ETFs, according to Bloomberg's James Seyphart. He said.
Look, all I'm saying is that there's a reason why BlackRock and Fidelity haven't filed for SOL ETFs. ETH ETFs have visual $35 billion in inflows in the first five months of trading. I expect SOL ETFs to have lower inflows during the first five months.
4. Pump.fun will not collect most fees between memecoin platforms
One of the most interesting stories to watch in Solanaland this year is Unprecedented rise From memecoin Launchpad Pump.fun. Since its launch in early 2024, Pump's revenue has already exceeded $330 million. several times, He claims it's better Versions of Pump.fun have appeared, but no one has been able to snatch the crown in the memecoin sector.
But all good things must come to an end, and I think Pump.fun will move on to another app this year. Speculative platforms tend to have a short shelf life in the cryptocurrency space, just ask investors who are value OpenSea at $13.3 billion in 2022.
I think memcoins will continue to be a very large contributor to Solana chain volumes this year, but I don't think the majority of that volume will run on Pump.fun. If I had to guess, I'd say the obvious successor would be something AI-related.
5. Solana will not experience major power outages
Solana A. testified Number of interruptions She is four years old. This may be naive of me, but I don't think he'll add another break to this record in 2025.
This is a bold move because Firedancer, Solana's completely unique client, is ready for it Take off her training wheels Solana's productivity increased significantly this year. This will create a lot of potential unseen risk vectors that can lead to the collapse of the chain.
But the frequency of Solana outages has decreased over the past two years, perhaps because network developers have learned from previous mistakes. Solana Labs spin-off Anza recently creature A voided team intended to stress test the network. Additionally, Jump's Firedancer client took years to build, and was rolled out in multiple phases.
What is an outage last less than 12 months?
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