Solana Flips MATIC to Reclaim Top 10: Is Dogecoin Next?

Solana’s SOL has flipped one of its primary rivals, Polygon’s MATIC, to reclaim a spot in the top 10 market caps.

SOL’s valuation was more than triple that of MATIC’s leading around the time of the Terra debacle last May — $16.8 million to $5 billion.

But the FTX disaster crushed Solana. The native token for its layer-1 network collapsed upwards of 70% in the weeks following November’s crisis.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried had been one of the protocol’s loudest proponents (and biggest backers), with his venture capital dollars spread far and wide across Solana’s ecosystem.

The market quickly rejected SOL and many other tokens in Bankman-Fried’s orbit once allegations of sweeping fraud came to light — while MATIC began to outperform the market significantly.

Polygon describes itself as a “sidechain solution” that assists Ethereum in running smoothly (read: helps it scale). When Solana flipped number-two dogcoin shiba inu (SHIB) in late January, the obvious question was whether MATIC was next.

SOL did briefly eclipse MATIC around that time, for five days in total.

But it spent most of the time since valued some $2 billion lower.
Solana now has the edge by about $123 million ($7.93 billion to $7.81 billion).
Dogecoin (DOGE) is the next most valuable cryptocurrency at nearly $9.9 billion.

SOL is still about 40% below its valuation as the FTX scandal struck

Why has Solana flipped Polygon?

Granted, SOL is only worth about 1.5% more right now. And it could very well be that Polygon re-flips Solana again sometime soon.

But Solana has seen some interesting developments of late. Solana Saga, a branded Android phone filled with Web3 apps by default in the same vein as HTC’s Exodus range, is now available for public order. That’s exciting for Solana fans.

Helium, the crypto-powered incentivization system for ad-hoc wireless hotspots, also completed its migration to Solana last month. Its community voted to abandon its own blockchain network last September.

That’s not to say things aren’t buzzing in Polygon world, what with its major corporate NFT partnerships with the likes of Starbucks and DraftKings.

But a flippening is a flippening.

Is Dogecoin next?

Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.