FTX Bankruptcy Crisis Drops to $9.98
Smartphone Launch News Boosts 15% Rise Over a Week
The price of the virtual asset Solana has recently been showing a sharp upward trend. Although it was hit hard by the global cryptocurrency exchange FTX bankruptcy crisis last year, it has garnered market attention by creating a rebound opportunity.
According to CoinMarketCap, a global cryptocurrency market tracking site, as of 1:45 PM on the 13th, Solana's price was recorded at $24 (approximately 31,512 KRW), up 5.82% from the previous day. Compared to the price a week ago, it has risen by more than 15%.
Until November 5 last year, Solana was trading above $30 but declined due to the FTX bankruptcy crisis. Compared to existing Layer 1 blockchains like Ethereum, Solana attracted attention as the next-generation blockchain thanks to its fast processing speed and low fees, but its close relationship with FTX became a hindrance. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried claimed that Solana was undervalued and developed DeFi (decentralized finance) projects based on Solana. He also created an NFT (non-fungible token) marketplace within FTX where transactions could be made using Solana and Ethereum.
In this situation, with FTX's bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried's arrest in the Bahamas in November last year, negative factors piled up, causing the price to plummet to $9.98 (approximately 13,114 KRW) earlier this year. Bankman-Fried faces charges including fraud, money laundering, and illegal campaign contributions under criminal law. Additionally, in 2021, when Chinese law enforcement froze some accounts of Alameda Research, an FTX affiliate, at two Chinese virtual asset exchanges, he was also indicted on charges of bribing at least one Chinese official with virtual assets worth at least $40 million to lift the freeze.
However, recently, the price has been recovering as Solana Labs, the issuer of Solana, announced plans to launch an Android smartphone. The smartphone 'Saga,' scheduled for release on the 14th, is equipped with blockchain functions as well as virtual asset and NFT trading capabilities. Through this, Solana Labs expects safe and easy transactions to be possible. Furthermore, the app store available on Saga is expected to be free to use, unlike other stores that charge fees. Previously, in October last year, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko declared that Saga would become a competitor to Apple and Google. He also stated, "It could change the way people think about fees charged by Google and Apple."
As Solana's price rises, interest in the Solana blockchain has also increased. According to data from DeFi analysis platform DeFiLlama, as of the previous day, the total value locked (TVL) in the Solana blockchain was $292.01 million (approximately 382.8 billion KRW). This represents an increase of 4.75% and 15.75% compared to early this month and last month, respectively. Compared to the beginning of this year, it surged by 42.38%.
Meanwhile, by blockchain, Ethereum had the largest total value locked at $30.33 billion (approximately 39.7778 trillion KRW), followed by Tron ($5.49 billion), Binance Smart Chain (BSC, $4.99 billion), and Arbitrum ($2.24 billion). The Solana blockchain ranked 12th in size, following Chronos ($371.13 million) and DeFiChain ($323.60 million).
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