Solana breaks all-time high on Coinbase, 2 years after FTX catastrophe

Solana finally broke a new record high on Nov. 22, two years after the FTX exchange collapsed and pulled down prices of the layer-1 blockchain token. 

Solana (SOL $259.34) prices tapped $264.31 on Coinbase on Nov. 22, according to TradingView. The move follows an impressive 11% gain over the past 24 hours.

SOL has been one of the better-performing altcoins this year, having gained 160% since the beginning of 2024. 

The asset fell to a cycle low of just under $10 in December 2022 after the collapse of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire. 

SOL/USD on Coinbase. Source: Tradingview

Momentum for the asset has been driven by filings this week from Bitwise, VanEck, 21Shares and Canary Capital to issue spot Solana exchange-traded funds. 

Analysts have targeted a high of $400 for SOL once the previous all-time high of $260 was overcome. 

Solana’s popularity and demand for SOL have been primarily driven by memecoin speculation this cycle since it is cheap and easy to mint them on the network. 

Decentralized finance (DeFi) on Solana has also seen impressive growth, gaining more than 500% in terms of total value locked this year, which has now reached $8.8 billion, according to DefiLlama. 

The promise of friendlier crypto regulation under President-elect Donald Trump has ignited crypto markets over the past couple of weeks, driving total market capitalization to an all-time high of $3.42 trillion on Nov. 22. 

Altcoin momentum has also been driven by the announcement of SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s resignation in January. During his tenure, Gensler regularly asserted that every crypto asset aside from Bitcoin (BTC $98,850) was a security. 

XRP (XRP $1.40) is also performing well, with a 27% surge to top out at $1.40 during early trading on Nov. 22. Cardano (ADA $0.8838) and Avalanche (AVAX $36.18) were also seeing double-digit gains at the time of writing.