Solana heightened institutional interest leads to listing on Bloomberg’s crypto terminal

• Solana is now the third cryptocurrency on Bloomberg’s crypto terminal following Bitcoin and Ethereum.
• In the second half of the year, the altcoin has thrived owing to greater institutional favor alongside increased NFTs and DeFi utility.

Solana (SOL) has become the third cryptocurrency on the Bloomberg terminal, after Bitcoin and Ethereum. Dubbed “Bloomberg Galaxy Solana Index,” the standalone altcoin price tracker went live on the global terminal on Nov. 16. It is now “the first institutional-grade pricing source for Solana,” according to Tim Grant, the head of Europe at Galaxy Digital. The latter is a digital asset services company that partnered with the Manhattan-based media giant to list the new crypto.

Solana is now the fifth-largest cryptocurrency with a 68.4B market cap, placing it after Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin, and Tether. The Bloomberg tracker now shows the altcoin has gained 1,300 percent in the year. Much of these gains have happened in the last few months alone.

Solana and Bloomberg listing

Notably, Solana owed much of its growth to decentralized finance applications (dApps) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These two aspects of the decentralized industry have experienced massive growth this year, with the positivity rubbing off on Solana. The head of product at Blockasset. co agrees with this view, saying DeFi and NFTs have been “the ultimate source of boosted demand” for the coin. The DeFi industry now boasts a total value locked of $106 billion, up from January’s $26 billion, per DeFi Pulse. NFT sales volume eightfold between Q2 and Q3 ($10.7 billion), based on market tracker DappRadar.

According to CryptoSlam, Solana-based secondary NFT sales have reached almost $500 million in volume. The same NFT data aggregator ranks Solana 24-hour NFT sales as fourth-best behind Ethereum, Ronin, and Wax.

Over time, SOL has been touted as an “Ethereum Killer” for its potential to flip the second-largest cryptocurrency. The network has shown itself better in terms of lesser congestion, higher transaction speed (60x that of Ethereum), and cost-friendlier transactions, based on data from Solana Beach. SOL’s competition with Cardano has also been noted, with each battling to be ahead of the other in terms of market cap. Currently, Cardano trails just behind Solana, with a $61 billion market cap.

SOL: The bigger picture

Bloomberg’s Sol listing indicates greater institutional interest for the altcoin, partly contributed by the network’s entry into the NFT landscape. Per CoinShare’s weekly report, last week the altcoin saw inflows of $9.8 million from institutional investors. The figure ranked it the fourth-highest gainer after Bitcoin ($97.5M), Ethereum, ($17.3M) Cardano (16.4M).

Additionally, prominent figures in the crypto industry, such as FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), have endorsed the coin. SBF notes that Solana has a higher capacity for mass adoption as its transaction speed and gas fees rival those of Ethereum.

As of this writing, our data shows SOL was trading at $1.90, having shed off 8.1 percent in the day. The broader market correction likely triggered this plunge.