Bitcoin has had a strong year. Over the past 12 months, it has grown by about 60% and is currently trading just 7% below its all-time high. The main growth came from the launch of spot ETFs, a more lenient regulatory policy under the Trump administration, and the emergence of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. More and more investors are beginning to perceive $BTC as a safe-haven asset. And considering that interest rates seem to be heading down, interest in crypto is rising again.
But not all coins have received as much attention. Take the same $SOL . Despite the noise surrounding the project, it has only gained 7% over the year and remains 50% below its peak. What is holding back #solana and could this, on the contrary, make it a more interesting purchase than Bitcoin?
PoS and PoW: a look at the underlying technology
Solana operates on a proof-of-stake algorithm — here, coins are not mined but staked to receive rewards. This is much more efficient in terms of energy consumption. Plus, such blockchains support smart contracts, making them more flexible compared to Bitcoin, which uses proof-of-work. NFTs, games, decentralized applications, all of this is about Solana.
But Solana does not have a strict emission limit. It is an inflationary asset. Currently, there are about 528 million SOL in circulation, and although the inflation rate is gradually decreasing, it stabilizes only at 1.5% per year. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is strict, with a maximum of 21 million coins, most of which have already been mined. It is the scarcity that makes BTC attractive as digital gold.
Solana is fast, but still lags behind
Solana is not just another PoS token. It has its own network and a unique proof-of-history (PoH) mechanism that speeds up transaction processing. Theoretically, the network can process up to 65,000 transactions per second, but in practice, this figure usually ranges from 600 to 1,500. Still fast, especially compared to #Ethereum on the first layer, where the speed is around 15 transactions per second. But Ethereum has second-layer rollup solutions. They process data off the main network and deliver 4,000 TPS or more.
Solana has its weaknesses too. There are fewer developers, integration with other networks is weak, and the programming languages are not the easiest. There have also been outages in the network.
What awaits Solana ahead
Despite the problems, it's too early to write off Solana. Major companies like Visa and Shopify are already using Solana Pay for super-fast stablecoin payments. New games, decentralized applications, and even atypical things like wireless networks or tools for GPU sharing are emerging on the platform. Upcoming updates should finally reduce the load on the network.
There are also talks about launching a Solana ETF. If the SEC gives the green light, institutional capital could flood into the project, which would be on a completely different scale. However, for now, everything is at the level of expectations.
BTC or SOL: who to bet on?
Solana has its arguments: speed, a growing ecosystem, and real-world applications. But the project remains inflationary, competes with powerful L2 solutions based on Ethereum, and is still poorly compatible with other blockchains. Bitcoin, on the other hand, remains a reliable base. It is scarce, simple, and increasingly interesting to major players.
