Solana only briefly surpassed BNB in market cap, but its DeFi metrics suggest that the race is not yet over.
Summary
- After surpassing BNB, Solana returned to sixth place
- DeFi metrics suggest that the race is still on
- Solana’s TVL remains robust even after the price correction
Solana’s (SOL) recent rise to the fifth spot of all crypto assets, ahead of BNB (BNB), only lasted for a few hours. However, its fundamentals, including robust DeFi metrics, suggest that the race is not over and a potential for a major shift at the top of the crypto food chain.
After reaching $200 per coin and $107 billion in market capitalization on June 23, Solana once again took BNB’s place as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency. This was accompanied by a surge in DeFi total value locked on the Solana network, which broke $10 billion. Still, SOL’s price quickly corrected and fell below $190, pushing its market cap below BNB’s.
Interestingly, Solana’s DeFi TVL remained robust. On June 24, despite a drop in SOL’s value, its DeFi ecosystem remained above $10 billion in overall value. This is significant, as it shows that SOL’s ecosystem is not entirely dependent on the price of one of its key assets.
Can Solana surpass BNB?
Compared to Solana, BNB’s DeFi ecosystem is smaller, with a market capitalization of $6.832 billion. What is more, BNB takes only one-third of Solana’s revenue, with network fees at $459 million compared to Solana’s $1.55 million. Still, despite lower DeFi metrics, BNB receives support from Binance, whose fees are used for token burns, directly contributing to its scarcity.
Binance’s revenues correlate directly with the overall crypto market, including Solana. At the same time, Binance’s market share remains stable compared to both centralized and decentralized competitors. For this reason, BNB is a uniquely elusive competitor to SOL. For Solana to outperform BNB, Binance would need to lose a significant market share to DeFi platforms.
