Solana hits new all-time high following sale of Degenerate Apes NFT collection

Solana surged past Uniswap to hit a market capitalization of $17.9 billion after the launch of a non-fungible token (NFT) collection on Solanart.
The Degenerate Ape Academy NFT project sold a collection of 10,000 "smoothest brained" apes within eight minutes of launch.
The SOL network faced no congestion issues during the auction unlike Ethereum.
Analysts consider Solana's price rally impressive and predict slow, steady grinding in the altcoin.

Solana surged over 55% in the past week to hit a new ATH. The price rally was triggered by the sale of an NFT art collection on Solanart, a marketplace on the Solana network.

Solana hit a new all-time high above $64, ranks among top 10 cryptocurrencies

Solana jumped from the top 30 to the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization within two days. The top-performing altcoin's price is up over 36% in the last 24 hours, and SOL is rapidly capturing market share.

SOL is the native token of the Solana blockchain, and it is popular in the trading community as one of several "Ethereum killers." The altcoin's documentation states that a centralized database may process 710,000 transactions (smaller than 176 bytes each).

SOL currently processes nearly 50,000 transactions per second on its blockchain network. Solana's network capabilities were put to the test this weekend when the digital art collection titled "The Degenerate Ape Academy" went on sale on Solanart.

Within eight minutes of its launch, the collection sold 10,000 of its "smoothest brained" apes. The team behind the NFT sale shared their experience on Twitter, apologizing for the overflow of transactions.

We sold out in 8 minutes. Holy Ape.

No the drop was NOT smooth. It was shitty at best. We did A LOT wrong and the team was overwhelmed with the wave that hit us in the past week. It was exponentially bigger than we thought. Please ape rage in the comments /1 pic.twitter.com/HCccxoSoQn
— Degenerate Ape Academy (@DegenApeAcademy) August 15, 2021

Unlike NFT launches on the Ethereum network that lead to congestion and drive gas fees higher, Solana's high-powered blockchain facilitated smooth transaction processing, keeping the transaction fee low.

A well-known analyst on crypto Twitter, behind the handle @Pentosh1, tweeted:

When .@DegenApeAcademy launched on $SOL a light bulb went off for me. The cost is around $0.01c to mint as opposed to thousands and we saw something like this take place with $BNB over the summer on BSC chain. New people will migrate to things that are faster, cheaper, + easier
— Pentoshi Wont DM You (@Pentosh1) August 15, 2021

Ahead of SOL's price rally, a retail cryptocurrency trader and influencer who posts on Twitter with the handle @AltcoinSherpa predicted SOL's steady slow grinding.

$SOL: Very impressive, I think this looks to be a shift in market structure on the 4h. $55+ should almost certainly have some sellers around there. EMAs looking healthy, just slow steady grinding. #SOL pic.twitter.com/rs1V6HkD7O
— Altcoin Sherpa (@AltcoinSherpa) August 15, 2021

Solana's previous all-time high (ATH) was $56.20, with a surge in demand from the sale of the NFT collection; SOL surged over 20% over the weekend and hit $63.68 earlier today. Since then, the crypto is trading within a 2% range of the new ATH.

Nick Core, an independent cryptocurrency analyst, shared his bullish take on SOL's price rally and set a target of $100 for Ethereum's rival.

$SOL just hit a new high…
$100 is coming quick pic.twitter.com/oU0syu4cPu
— Nick Core (@Crypto_Core) August 16, 2021

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