By Fredrik Vold
The price of SOL, the native token of the Solana smart contract platform, reached a new all-time high today, as a new non-fungible token (NFT) project launched on the blockchain - and per one source, it has entered the top 10 coins by market capitalization.
As of press time on Monday (12:14 UTC), SOL is trading at USD 61.4, up 32% over the past 24 hours. The impressive rise marks a new all-time high for the token, smashing through its previous high from May this year of just over USD 58. It had reached USD 63.7 earlier today, having dropped 3.1% since.
Today‘s move also brought the token into Coingecko’s top 10 list of the most valuable cryptoassets by market capitalization - although some other tracking sites still rank it a place or two lower. Per CoinGecko, its market capitalization is currently USD 17.55bn, below polkadot (DOT)s USD 25.55bn, and above uniswap (UNI)s USD 16.05bn.
Notably, SOL is also up 63% in a week, 134% in a month, and 1,834% in a year.
The new all-time high for SOL comes as an NFT project known as the Degenerate Ape Academy launched on Solana on Sunday. According to tracking site Solanart.io, NFT sales worth SOL 99,600 (USD 6.17m) have been made through the project so far, and 2,984 items have been put up for listing. Currently the most expensive cartoon ape comes with a price tag of SOL 100,001 (USD 6.19m).
“We sold out in 8 minutes. Holy Ape,” the team behind the Degenerate Ape Academy wrote on Twitter on Sunday, while admitting that “the drop was not smooth. It was shitty at best […] It was exponentially bigger than we thought.” Further, the team admitted that an “overflow of transactions” were received,“ but said that they ”will be issuing refunds.
“The academy is live, and the building starts now,” the Degenerate Ape Academy added.
Replying to the Twitter statement by the team, some users did express criticism about the way the launch was handled, complaining about a lack of information about when the sale would start. According to the comments, this caused even the loyal fans of the project to spend hours waiting without a chance to participate before everything was sold out.
Meanwhile, SOL was also the week‘s best performer in the top 10, with a 7-day price gain of 59%. SOL’s gains were closely followed by XRP and cardano (ADA), which were up by 57% and 48%, respectively, over the same time period.