SBF-Linked Cryptocurrency Rises And Flips Ripple, Grabs Fifth Place On Top Crypto List

Solana (SOL), the native cryptocurrency of the blockchain platform of the same name, and the crypto asset that suffered significantly after FTT when Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX collapsed, is slowly rising from the ashes and has even flipped popular crypto assets as it sits on the fifth spot of the top cryptocurrencies.

Solana is now worth more than Ripple (XRP), as it's valued at nearly $34 billion, recording an impressive 700% increase in value since it bottomed out at the end of 2022.

The crypto asset trails behind Binance Coin (BNB), Tether (USDT), Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of market capitalization.

This week, Solana's total value locked (TVL) climbed to $1 billion, a first since FTX's fall in November 2022.

Solana survived the selling pressure from holdings in the FTX bankruptcy estate, and its growth is attributed to its flourishing decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.

Decentralized exchanges on Solana also saw a surge in trading volume with Orca, an automated market maker (AMM) based decentralized exchange (DEX) built on top of the Solana blockchain, which processed $746 million in volume.

The majority of the activities on Solana can be attributed to meme coins, particularly BONK, the dog-themed token that now has a market cap of over $1.2 billion.

Solana was once pegged as a viable rival of Ethereum, the second-most popular and largest crypto by market capitalization, but analysts think the market's confidence in Solana's future may have been impacted by its close association with Bankman-Fried, who is also known as SBF in the crypto space.

In 2021, Solana Labs raised $314.2 million and received significant support from Alameda Research, a hedge fund and crypto trading firm founded by Bankman-Fried.

Later that year, Bankman-Fried started building Serum, a decentralized exchange that uses Solana Blockchain. In the summer of 2022, the FTX founder called Solana the most underrated cryptocurrency, seemingly endorsing the token.

However, like others associated with Bankman-Fried and his businesses, SOL crashed to 70% following the collapse of FTX and shed 94% of its value since the start of the year.

Solana was trading in the green zone at $86.84 as of 4:22 a.m. ET on Thursday with a 24-hour trading volume up by 120.19% at $4,390,322,662.

Solana's latest price action represents a 14.37% spike in its value in the past 24 hours and a 21.33% gain over the last seven days.

Data from CoinMarketCap shows that Solana's current circulating supply stands at 427,827,022 SOL and its market cap is $37,212,025,746.