Solana

Crema Finance shuts liquidity protocol on Solana amid hack investigation

While awaiting Crema Finance’s report on the situation, the Crypto Twitter community took it to themselves to track down the hacker’s wallet and better understand the problem.

Crema Finance, a concentrated liquidity protocol over the Solana blockchain, announced the temporary suspension of its services owing to a successful exploit that has drained a substantial but undisclosed amount of funds.

Soon after realizing the hack on its protocol, Crema Finance suspended the liquidity services to refrain the hacker from draining out its liquidity reserves — which include the funds of the service provider and investors.

Speaking to Cointelegraph about the matter, Henry Du, the co-founder of Crema Finance, confirmed the commencement of the investigation. He stated:

“We are working with some security companies and got support from Solana, Solscan and Etherscan etc. We will continue to post any update via official Twitter account.”

While the company has yet to provide an update based on an investigation that was ongoing at the time of writing, the Crypto Twitter community took it to themselves to track down the hacker’s wallet and gain a better understanding of the situation. 

Based on a personal investigation, crypto community member @HarveyMackinto2 allegedly spotted the hacker’s wallet address. The address in question holds 69,422.89 Solana (SOL) tokens — roughly over $2.3 million — procured through a series of transactions over several hours.

Other members of the crypto community, however, suspect the hacker made away with 90% of the total liquidity from some of Crema Finance’s pools. Du, too, confirmed that all the functions of the protocol have been suspended indefinitely and asked investors to stay tuned for further information in the form of an update.

Readers must note that Crema Finance is not related to Cream Finance, a decentralized finance DeFi lending protocol, that also lost $19 million in a flash loan hack last year. 

Related: Infamous North Korean hacker group identified as suspect for $100M Harmony attack

North Korean hacking syndicate — the Lazarus Group — has become the primary suspect of a recent attack that made away $100 million from the Harmony protocol.

Investigations from blockchain analysis firm Elliptic claimed the involvement of North Korea based on the laundering methods of the stolen funds:

“There are strong indications that North Korea’s Lazarus Group may be responsible for this theft, based on the nature of the hack and the subsequent laundering of the stolen funds.”

Traders debate whether Solana (SOL) is a buy now that it’s down 87% from its all-time high

SOL price is 87% down from its all-time high, but do improving fundamentals strengthen its investment thesis?

The crypto sector is caught in a deep correction and recent reporting shows that a majority of altcoins are more than 70% down from their 2021 highs. Solana is on that list and investors are on the fence about whether the token has strong enough fundamentals to warrant buying Solana (SOL) at its current value. 

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows SOL is down 87.5% from its all-time high and given the current state of the market, most price breakouts fail to notch a daily higher high.

SOL/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView

Despite, the dismal outlook, there are a few potential positives that could make Solana a project to watch once the wider market enters a consolidation phase.

Solana Mobile

SOL price received a quick boost late last week after a June 23 announcement that the project would release a Solana mobile stack, which enables native Android Web3 apps on Solana.

To go along with the new operating interface for smartphones, Solana also revealed that it will be releasing its own “Saga” Android phone through Solana Mobile in an effort to lead the way on Web3-enabled devices.

Web3 and the Metaverse are two of the topics that arose out of the 2021 bull market and point to the future of where blockchain technology is headed. This move by Solana shows that despite the short-term struggles, it continues to develop for the future and looks to play a part in the wider adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrency.

The low fee nature of the Solana blockchain makes it an ideal candidate for nonfungible token (NFT) projects and gaming DApps, and the release of a tech stack for mobile phones is the next step in creating wider access to these technologies.

If the developers can manage to solve the issues that continue to cause Solana network outages, the token has a chance of being a top contender once the wider market turns bullish again.

Short-term pain is expected, but fundamentals improve

While it’s nice to look ahead at what the distant future may hold, the reality is that the short-term outlook for Solana and the wider crypto ecosystem is rather unappealing.

Insight into the lower price points to keep an eye on was offered by crypto trader and pseudonymous Twitter user Crypto Tony, who posted the following chart warning traders to not fall for the first retest of a major support level.

SOL/USDT 1-week chart. Source: Twitter

Crypto Tony said,

“First demand zone tested hence this reaction, but you really want to call a bottom already after the first test…”

Based on the chart provided, the notable lower levels of support for Solana are located at $13.50 and $3.50.

Market analyst and pseudonymous Twitter user Crypto Patel also predicts further downside in the near term for SOL due to a strong amount of resistance found at the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA).

SOL/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: Twtter

Crypto Patel said,

“After breakout and retest of $40 zone, Supports converts into Resistance […] Facing resistance at 200EMA. Anytime can give downside movement. Sell: $38.5, SL: $43.2, TP: $27.”

Related: SOL price eyes 75% rally as Solana paints a bullish reversal pattern

Is SOL in the early stages of a recovery?

A more optimistic outlook for Solana was offered by pseudonymous Twitter user Trader McGavin, who posted the following chart highlighting the important levels of resistance at $60, $74 and $95.

SOL/USDT 1-day chart. Source: Twitter

The analyst said,

“Double bottomed after breaking down from the wedge and rebounding higher. One of the first to bounce off the bottom and may be headed to $48.”

The importance of maintaining the current price levels was also touched on by crypto trader and pseudonymous Twitter user Altcoin Sherpa, who posted the following chart noting the bullish signal provided by the medium-term EMAs.

SOL/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: Twitter

Altcoin Sherpa said,

“$SOL: Still a do or die area in low time frames; this is the first time we’ve seen some of the medium EMAs flip bullish since March. Longing mid $30s is my current plan as a scalp since I missed the short higher.”

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

SOL price trending toward yearly low as Solana TVL drops $870M in three days

DeFi contagion fears and bearish technicals mean additional downside pressure on Solana price.

Solana (SOL) tumbled on June 16 amid a broader retreat across the top cryptocurrencies, led by the Federal Reserve’s 0.75% interest rate hike a day before.

Solana price rebound fizzles

Notably, SOL/USD plunged nearly 17% to $30 a token, wiping out almost all the gains from the day before. The SOL price volatility liquidated almost $10 million worth of contracts in the past 24 hours across multiple crypto exchanges, data from Coinglass shows. 

SOL liquidation record since May 17. Source: Coinglass 

The latest declines come as an extension to SOL’s broader correction, where it dropped by more than 90% after peaking out near $267 in November 2021. SOL also fell to its lowest level since July 2021 near $25.

In addition, a higher interest rate environment and the collapse of high-profile crypto projects like Terra have strengthened SOL’s downside prospects. 

SOL paints “ascending triangle”

Solana’s pullback move on June 16 began after testing a horizontal trendline resistance near $34 that constitutes what appears to be an “ascending triangle” pattern.

Ascending triangles are continuation patterns, i.e., they tend to send the price in the direction of their previous trend. As a rule, breaking out of a triangle pattern in a bearish market, for example, sends the price down by as much as the structure’s maximum height.

If SOL breaks below its ascending triangle’s lower trendline then the bearish profit target will come below $22.50, as shown in the chart below.

SOL/USD four-hour price chart featuring “ascending triangle” pattern. Source: TradingView

Solana’s downside target is about 25% below June 16’s price and could be achieved by the end of June. Nonetheless, if SOL bounces after testing the triangle’s lower trendline as support, it would eye the $34–$36 range as its interim upside target.

Massive SOL exit

Over 27 million Solana tokens have exited its smart contract ecosystem since June 13.

The total value locked (TVL) inside Solana smart contracts dropped to 74.65 million SOL (~$2.25 billion) on June 16, down 27% in the last three days, according to data tracked by DeFi Llama. That amounts to nearly $840 million of withdrawals from the ninth-largest blockchain ecosystem by market cap.

Solana TVL performance since April 2021. Source: DeFi Llama

Solend, a lending platform functioning atop the Solana ledger, witnessed a 26.5% decline in its TVL in the last three days and was holding 9.66 million SOL (~$290 million) as of June 16. Nevertheless, it remains the leading platform by TVL within the Solana ecosystem.

Related: Liquidity provider asks platforms to freeze 3AC funds to recover assets after litigation

The outflows indicate that depositors do not want to keep their SOL locked in DeFi protocols, a sentiment common across the sector after Terra, an “algorithmic stablecoin” project, collapsed last month.

Therefore, Solana’s path of least resistance remains skewed to the downside in the near term, particularly with no improvement in terms of macro and fundamentals. 

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Finance Redefined: Number of DAOs surge, Solana launches $100M DeFi fund

The past week in DeFi saw the launch of another $100M fund by Solana and the number of DAOs surged over 8X with increased protocol activity.

This past week, the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem was ruled by decentralized autonomous organizations and new fund launches for the growth of the Web3 ecosystem. The total number of DAOs surged by eight times while Solana launched a $100 million DeFi fund.

Optimism, an Ethereum layer-2 protocol that Vitalik Buterin recently praised for its governance model, lost 20 million tokens due to a mix-up of layer-1 and layer-2 addresses. A leaked 600-page copy of a United States crypto draft bill also grabbed the community’s attention, as it proposes heavy regulatory scrutiny for DeFi and DAOs.

The top-100 DeFi tokens showed mixed market performance, with several tokens registering double-digit gains in the last seven days, while a significant majority remained bearish on the weekly charts.

Number of DAOs increases 8x along with a spike in votes and proposals

The total number of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO), the number of governance proposals put forward and the number of votes cast have all seen astounding growth over the past 12 months.

Data compiled by Snapshot Labs and shared by Electric Capital engineer Emre Caliskan in a Thursday tweet highlighted that DAO numbers have increased over eight-fold, from 700 in May 2021 to 6,000 now. The number of proposals has increased by 8.5 times, and the number of total votes has increased by 8.3 times over the past 12 months, from 448,000 to 3.7 million.

Continue reading

Solana Ventures sets up $100M fund for GameFi and DeFi in South Korea

Solana Ventures and the Solana Foundation have formed a $100-million fund to help support the growth of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain gaming and DeFi projects in South Korea.

In addition to supporting projects built on Solana, the fund will help keep some Terra-based projects afloat following the collapse of that ecosystem last month.

Continue reading

Leaked copy of the U.S draft bill shows DeFi and DAOs under regulatory lens

A leaked copy of a United States draft bill concerning cryptocurrency started doing the rounds on Twitter earlier on Tuesday. The 600-page copy of the leaked bill highlights some of the key areas of concern for regulators including DeFi, stablecoins, decentralized DAOs and crypto exchanges.

User protection seems to be the primary focus of regulators, with policies intended to require any crypto platform or service provider to legally register in the U.S., be it a DAO or DeFi protocol.

Continue reading

Optimism loses 20M tokens after L1 and L2 confusion exploited

The honeymoon period for the Optimism layer-2 scaling solution has been cut short, as an exploit in its market maker’s smart contract led to the loss of 20 million OP tokens.

The exploit took place on May 26 but has only just been reported to the community. One million tokens valued at about $1.3 million were sold on Sunday. An additional 1 million tokens valued at about $730,000 were transferred to Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum address on Optimism earlier today at 12:26 am UTC. The remaining tokens are dormant for now but could be sold at any time or used to sway governance decisions.

Continue reading

DeFi market overview

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked registered a slight dip over the past week, with the value dipping below $80 billion again. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reveals that DeFi’s top-100 tokens by market capitalization registered a week filled with volatile price action but broke out of the bearish trend over the past couple of days.

The majority of the DeFi tokens in the top-100 ranking by market cap traded in the green, Chainlink (LINK) was the biggest gainer with a 29% surge, followed by Theta Network (THETA) with a 17.2% rise. Tezos (XTZ) registered a 14.14% price rise, while PancakeSwap (CAKE) grew by 1.23% over the last seven days.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Solana price just one breakdown away from a 40% slide in June — here’s why

Network outages and decreasing smart contract reserves add further downside pressure to SOL price.

Solana (SOL) is nearing a decisive breakdown moment as it inches towards the apex of its prevailing “descending triangle” pattern.

SOL’s 40% price decline setup

Notably, SOL’s price has been consolidating inside a range defined by a falling trendline resistance and horizontal trendline support, which appears like a descending triangle—a trend continuation pattern.

Therefore, since SOL has been trending lower, down about 85% from its November 2021 peak of $267, its likelihood of breaking below the triangle range is higher.

As a rule of technical analysis, a breakdown move followed by the formation of a descending triangle could last until the price has fallen by as much as the triangle’s maximum height. This puts SOL’s bearish price target at $22.50 in June, down about 40% from June 10’s price.

SOL/USD daily price chart featuring “descending triangle” breakdown setup. Source: TradingView

But not all descending triangles lead to breakdowns, suggests a study conducted by Samurai Trading Academy. Notably, the likelihood of a descending triangle setup reaching its profit target is seven out of 10, based on the pattern’s history.

So that leaves SOL with a roughly 30% chance of avoiding a breakdown and rebounding.

Solana’s rebound scenario

Descending triangles that form during downtrends but still lead to price reversals typically mark the bottom of the asset’s bearish cycle.

Suppose SOL holds strong above the triangle’s horizontal trendline support. Then, the SOL/USD pair could break above the structure’s falling trendline resistance, and rise by as much as its maximum height, which puts its upside target around $65, up about 72% from June 10’s price.

SOL/USD daily price chart featuring descending triangle reversal setup. Source: TradingView

The descending triangle’s bullish profit target also coincides with SOL’s 50-day exponential moving average (50-day EMA; the red wave) near $59.

Meanwhile, SOL’s daily relative strength index (RSI), which has been reversing from its oversold threshold of 30 since May 12, also boosts the token’s upside prospects.

Solana TVL drops 75% from peak

Meanwhile, Solana’s fundamentals are mixed.

As a blockchain network, it had performed poorly in recent months due to back-to-back outages. The total value locked (TVL) inside Solana’s smart contracts has crashed to $3.69 billion, down 75% from its December 2021’s record high of $14.83 billion, data from Defi Llama shows.

Solana TVL performance history. Source: Defi Llama

On the bright side, Solana experienced sustained growth in network usage, developer activity, network infrastructure and overall ecosystem in the first quarter of 2022, according to a study penned by James Trautman, a researcher at U.S.-based crypto analytics firm Messari.

An excerpt reads:

“Several factors contributed to the Q1 results, including the continued growth of new NFTs and NFT markets, diversification of TVL, improvements in UX and new applications across several sectors outside of DeFi.

Related: Is Solana a ‘buy’ with SOL price at 10-month lows and down 85% from its peak?

On June 8, Solana’s venture capital arm launched a $100 million investment and grant fund to support its blockchain-based products in South Korea, a country whose crypto sector stands damaged by the recent collapse of Terra (originally LUNA, now, a $40 billion “algorithmic stablecoin” project. 

The decision expects to attract developers that want to migrate their projects from Terra to Solana, which could lead to a higher demand for SOL.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

This key Ethereum price metric shows ETH traders aren’t as bearish as they appear

Traders keep saying ETH price will collapse below $1,600 soon, but a key trading metric shows most are unwilling to place bearish bets below $1,900.

Ether (ETH) is down 25% in just a month and even the recent upgrade to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus on the Ropsten testnet failed to move the altcoin’s price. 

The merge is meant to address energy-use issues and open a path for higher transaction output, but the actual full transition for the Ethereum network is not expected until later in the year. Ethereum developer Parithosh Jayanthi also noted that some bugs on the PoS implementation emerged, but those should be fixed over the coming weeks.

Luckily for Ethereum, two of its top competitors recently faced challenges of their own. The Solana (SOL) network faced the fifth outage in 2022 after no new blocks were produced for four hours on June 1. Every decentralized application was halted until the validators were able to address the problem and re-sync the network.

More recently, Binance’s native BNB token dropped 7% on June 7 after news that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had opened an investigation into the initial coin offer (ICO) from 2017. According to Bloomberg, at least one U.S. resident claimed to have taken part in the ICO, which could be crucial for an SEC case.

Regulatory uncertainty could be partially responsible for Ether’s sharp correction. On June 6, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) released a note warning about the investment risks of nonfungible tokens. The regulatory agency highlighted the sectors’ opaque pricing, illiquid markets and frauds.

Options traders are still extremely risk-averse

Traders should look at Ether’s derivatives markets data to understand how larger-sized traders are positioned. The 25% delta skew is a telling sign whenever whales and arbitrage desks overcharge for upside or downside protection.

If those traders fear an Ether price crash, the skew indicator will move above 10%. On the other hand, generalized excitement reflects a negative 10% skew. That is precisely why the metric is known as the pro traders’ fear and greed metric.

Ether 30-day options 25% delta skew: Source: Laevitas.ch

The skew indicator has been above 10% since May 22, and it recently peaked at 20% on June 3. Those levels signal extreme fear from options traders, and despite the modest improvement, the current 17% delta skew shows whales and arbitrage desks unwilling to take downside risk.

Long-to-short data is showing a few positives

The top traders’ long-to-short net ratio excludes externalities that might have solely impacted the options markets. By analyzing these top clients’ positions on the spot, perpetual and quarterly futures contracts, one can better understand whether professional traders are leaning bullish or bearish.

There are occasional methodological discrepancies between different exchanges, so viewers should monitor changes instead of absolute figures.

Exchanges’ top traders Ether long-to-short ratio. Source: Coinglass

Even though Ether has struggled to sustain $1,800 as a support, professional traders did not change their positions between June 5 and 9, according to the long-to-short indicator.

Binance displayed a modest decrease in its long-to-short ratio, as the indicator moved from 0.99 to the current 0.96 in four days. Thus, those traders slightly net increased their bearish bets.

Huobi data shows a similar pattern and the indicator moved from 1.02 to 0.98 on June 9, which was a small change favoring shorts. At OKX exchange, the metric oscillated drastically within the period but finished nearly unchanged at 1.35.

Related: DeFi contagion? Analysts warn of ‘Staked Ether’ de-pegging from Ethereum by 50%

Mixed derivatives data provides hope for bulls

Overall, there hasn’t been a significant change in whales and market makers’ leverage positions despite Ether’s failure to break the $1,900 resistance on June 6.

From one side, options traders fear that a deeper Ether price correction is likely in the making, but at the same time, futures market players have no conviction to increase bearish bets.

This reading is likely a “glass half full” scenario as the top traders’ unwillingness to short below $1,900 can potentially create a support level.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Sold your SOL? Solana price eyes 35% jump as two technical signals flip bullish

Solana’s nearly 80% year-to-date decline is likely to follow up with some relief rallies, technicals suggest.

At least two technical indicators show Solana (SOL) could undergo a sharp price recovery in June, even after the SOL/USD pair’s 78.5% year-to-date decline.

SOL price nears bullish wedge breakout

First, Solana has been painting a “falling wedge” since May, confirmed by its fluctuations inside two descending, converging trendlines. Traditional analysts consider falling wedges as bullish reversal patterns, meaning they resolve after the price breaks above their upper trendlines.

As a rule of technical analysis, a falling wedge’s profit target is measured after adding the maximum distance between its upper and lower trendlines to the breakout point. So depending on SOL’s breakout level, its price would rise by roughly $20, as shown below.

SOL/USD daily price chart featuring “rising wedge” breakout setup. Source: TradingView

That puts the SOL’s price target at $58 if measured from the current price, or about 35% higher. But if the price retreats after testing the wedge’s upper trendline and continues to fluctuate inside its range, SOL’s profit target would keep getting lower.

The Solana token can rise to at least $44 after breaking out of its wedge pattern.

Bullish divergence

More upside cues for Solana come from a growing separation between its price and momentum trends.

In detail, SOL’s recent downside moves accompany an upside retracement in the readings of its daily relative price index (RSI), a momentum oscillator that detects an asset’s overbought (>70) and oversold (

SOL/USD daily price chart featuring price-momentum divergence. Source: TradingView

This situation, otherwise known as “bullish divergence,” shows that bears are losing control and that bulls would capture the market again.

Solana still faces bearish risks

Financial market veteran Tom Bulkowski believes falling wedges are poor bullish indicators, however, with a higher breakeven failure rate of 26%. Meanwhile, there is only a 64% chance that a falling wedge would meet its profit target, which leaves Solana with the possibility of continuing its downtrend.

Related: Solana developers tackle bugs hoping to prevent further outages

Bulkowski asserts:

“The only variation that works well is a downward breakout in a bear market.”

Fundamentals around Solana agree with a downside outlook. They include a hawkish Federal Reserve and the negative impact of their tightening on riskier assets, including cryptos and equities.

As a result, SOL could move lower under the said macro risks, with its next potential downside target in the $19–$25 area, as shown below.

SOL/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView

This range was instrumental as support in the March–July 2021 session.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

How to buy NFTs on Solana?

With the introduction of platforms like Solana, buyers may now purchase NFTs for a low transaction charge and with minimal congestion.

The burgeoning popularity of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) has led to issues like exorbitant transaction fees and congestion in the prevalent Ethereum-based ecosystem. The fee factor serves as a major deterrent to anyone wanting to execute transactions on the blockchain.

A report published by Reuters revealed that the NFT sales volume was $24.9 billion in 2021, considerably more than the $94.9 million in 2020. The number of wallets trading in NFTs jumped to about 28.6 million, from a modest 545,000 in 2020. Recently, when Bored Ape minted its NFTs, the gas fee surged to $3300, showing a glimpse of how bad the costs were on Ethereum (ETH).

Related: The NFT marketplace: How to buy and sell nonfungible tokens

Solana (SOL) has emerged as a prominent challenger to Ethereum, performing amazingly better on two key metrics, speed and transaction cost, thanks to an innovative proof-of-history (PoH) timing mechanism along with a proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol structure.

In this article, we will discuss the advantage Solana has over other blockchains and marketplaces as well as how to buy NFTs on Solana.

The Solana advantage

This blockchain clocks block time (0.4 seconds) and block size (20,000 transactions) compared to Ethereum (block time: 13 seconds, block size: 70 transactions) allowing the network an incredibly low gas fee of just $0.00025 per transaction.

The arrival of solutions like Solana enables buyers to purchase NFTs with a negligible transaction fee or few congestion issues. Practically, it means that Solana or SOL NFTs are more easily accessible than those on Ethereum.

In the second half of 2021, the price of Solana NFTs began picking up. A Degenerate Ape NFT sold for around $1.1 million in September 2021, becoming the first million-dollar NFT sale on the Solana network. In October 2021, a Solana Monkey was sold for $2 million.

Solana NFT marketplaces

If you are wondering where you can buy Solana NFTs, marketplaces are the answer. All functions related to NFTs such as minting, buying, selling and trading occur on specific marketplaces. This is quite like the usual cryptocurrencies, which are managed through exchanges and crypto wallets. OpenSea is the most popular NFT marketplace on Ethereum.

SolSea, Solanart and DigitalEyes are three prominent marketplaces that support Solana NFTs. SolSea enables creators to choose and embed their licenses while minting NFTs. On Solanart, you can find, collect and trade NFTs. DigitalEyes is a popular platform featuring collections like the Solana Monkey Business and Frakt.

How to buy Solana NFTs

Busy thinking about how to buy and sell Solana NFTs? Purchasing NFTs on Solana involves a few steps, as explained below:

Get a Solana wallet

The first step you need to take is to get a Solana-based wallet. Two better known wallets are SolFlare and Phantom. Advanced users may use Sollet, an open source wallet. Each of these NFT marketplaces have collections, fees and terms to work that you need to take into account. So, you need to do adequate research at your end before committing your funds.

Create a new wallet on your chosen solution and connect it with the Solana marketplace you have selected. The website of the market place will guide you through the process.

An important thing to remember, don’t try to do anything on Solana via Metamask, a popular wallet on Ethereum, or else your SOL will disappear forever as MetaMask doesn’t recognize SOL tokens. Phantom is the Metamask of Solana Network.

Get SOL coins

You have to use SOL cryptocurrency on Solana NFT platforms, just like you use ETH on Ethereum-based marketplaces. SOL coins are for sale on various exchanges. The typical process involves connecting your fiat account with the exchange, moving funds and purchasing the required SOL amount. You need to withdraw this SOL to your wallet address.

To be on the safe side, withdraw just what you need for buying the NFT. For instance, in case an NFT is available for 15 SOL, you may withdraw exactly that amount along with the transaction fee needed. Alternatively, you can change your stablecoins to SOL on an exchange and move the currency to your wallet address.

Related: Altcoins vs stablecoins: Key differences explained

Develop a strategy

When it comes to NFT investment, there is no singular strategy. In line with your goals, you have to come up with your own. Collectibles are in demand as are artworks, achievements and other assets associated with renowned personalities as they help fans to feel connected with them. For someone interested in games, there are plenty of NFTs of sports stars or games memorabilia to make them feel elated and earn income as well.

While buyers are putting in their funds for earning a profit, you may also prefer to ensure that your investments align with your interests. Someone who is fond of playing games will surely want an NFT right from a popular game, probably a reward NFT. And if you like spending time on metaverses, you may want to get one from the one you simply love hopping to.

Finding what is trending on the Solana marketplaces will help you zero in on the pieces that are likely to get maximum traction. If you aren’t very used to the NFT world, this will help you to get a feel of the NFt world.

Buy your NFTs

Whatever platform you choose, you might like to check out the latest or trending NFTs. Go through as many collections as you can before arriving at a decision. If you want to keep the costs low, include this criterion in the filter when searching for top Solana NFTs.

Just click on the NFT and go through the information available about the piece. Become apprised of the information like the owner of the NFT, the price and the offer you will make once the wallet connection is set.

Solanart, the most stable of the NFT marketplaces on the network, takes around 20 seconds from start to finish and less than half a dollar transaction fee. The price history of all collections is available on the marketplace. Solana NFT marketplaces may still be nowhere near OpenSea, which has been around since 2017, but they are soon catching up.

Update wallet

On most wallets, you will find a Buy button that you need to click. The wallet will then usually seek approval of the purchase. It will show you the amount you are going to spend as well as the transaction fee you will incur. Once you approve and make the purchase, you can see it residing in the relevant section. On the Phantom wallet, for instance, it gets transferred to the Collection section.

The process is quite straightforward and you shouldn’t have any problem in completing the transaction after transferring SOL into your wallet. A reason for the growing popularity of Solana platforms is that they are simple to use.

The days ahead

The NFT revolution has just begun and there are still miles to go. As the ecosystem progresses, more marketplaces will emerge. We can say for sure that these marketplaces will be better than the current lot. User interfaces will be more intuitive and a wider range of features will be available, adding up to user experience.

As the Solana community progresses with time, the number of NFT buyers will grow as well, giving a fillip to the growth potential of your NFT values. Just make sure you buy each SOL NFT only after giving it proper thought and you should do fine.

Solana developers tackle bugs hoping to prevent further outages

Solana developers have tackled the “durable nonce transaction” bug that knocked the network offline for the fifth time this year earlier this month as network activity slows.

Developers have fixed the runtime bug that caused the latest outage of the Solana network on June 1.

According to a report published by Solana Labs on June 5, Solana’s fifth outage of 2022 was caused by a bug in the “durable nonce transactions feature” which caused the network to stop producing blocks for roughly four and half hours.

“The durable nonce transaction feature was disabled in releases v1.9.28/v1.10.23 to prevent the network from halting if the same situation were to arise again.”

“Durable nonce transactions will not process until the mitigation has been applied, and the feature re-activated in a forthcoming release,” they added.

The term durable nonce transactions refers to a type of transaction on Solana that is designed to not expire, unlike a normal transaction on the network which usually has a short lifetime of around 2 minutes before a blockhash becomes too old to be validated.

It is generally used to support transactions tied to avenues such as custodial services which require more time than the usual “to produce a signature for the transaction” according to Solana Documentation.

Solana Labs noted that durable nonce transactions require a separate “mechanism to prevent double processing, and are processed serially,” however a runtime bug presented itself after a durable nonce transaction was processed as a regular transaction and failed, but was then re-submitted again and resulted in the network grinding to a halt.

“After the failed transaction was processed, but before the nonce was used again, the user resubmitted the same transaction for processing. This resubmission activated the bug in the runtime,“ the p report reads.

Related: Is Solana a ‘buy’ with SOL price at 10-month lows and down 85% from its peak?

The price of Solana’s native asset SOL has dropped roughly 13.9% since the mainnet outage on June 1 to sit at $39.08 at the time of writing. Investor appetite to trade the asset has only increased, however, with 24-hour trading volume increasing by 61% to $2.141 billion within that same time frame, according to data from CoinGecko.

In a broader sense, data from Solana-focused analytics platform Hello Moon shows that the total value moved on-chain (successfully) in terms of a seven-day rolling average has significantly dropped since late March.

After topping out at all-time-high levels of around $3.18 trillion on March 24, the figure has plunged to around $159.71 billion as of June 4.

Is Solana a ‘buy’ with SOL price at 10-month lows and down 85% from its peak?

SOL price still faces headwinds from its Bitcoin correlation, macro risks as well as Solana’s downtimes.

Solana’s (SOL) price dropped on June 3, bringing its net paper losses down to 85% seven months after topping out above $260.

SOL price fell by more than 6.5% intraday to $35.68, after failing to rebound with conviction from 10-month lows. 

Now sitting on a historically significant support level, the SOL/USD pair could see an upside retracement in June, eyeing the $40-$45 area next, up around 25% from today’s price.

SOL/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView

60% SOL price decline ahead?

However, a rebound scenario is far from guaranteed and Solana faces headwinds from trading in lockstep with Bitcoin (BTC), the top cryptocurrency (by market cap) that typically influences trends across the top altcoins. 

Notably, the weekly correlation coefficient between BTC and SOL was 0.92 as of June 4.

SOL/USD versus BTC/USD correlation coefficient. Source: TradingView

What’s more, Solana is likely to see even bigger losses than BTC if Bitcoin falls deeper below its current psychological support level of $30,000.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve looks determined to raise benchmark interest rates and reduce its balance sheet. As a result of this hawkish policy, riskier assets like Bitcoin have room to go lower, hurting Solana’s bullish prospects. 

Breaking below SOL’s current support level—around $35—raises the chances for a decline toward the $18-25 range, which acted as a strong support area in March-July 2021, and preceded a 1,200% price rally, as shown below.

SOL/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView

This bearish scenario would put SOL almost 60% below today’s price.

Solana network outages

The bearish outlook for SOL also comes as the Solana blockchain faces repeated outages, thus leaving its network practically unusable for its key “dapps,” including lending protocol Solend and decentralized exchange Serum, for hours.

Solana’s latest software glitch appeared on June 1 that shut down the network for 4.5 hours. The blockchain’s biggest outage happened in January and was down for almost 18 hours.

The outages risk spooking investors to the benefit of Solana’s competition and have already coincided with several traders rotating their capital elsewhere.

Miles Deutscher, an independent market analyst, believes crypto investors have become cautious after witnessing the recent Terra fiasco. Nonetheless, the analyst asserts that Solana’s outages would decrease over time as the network matures.

Related: Alchemy announces support for Solana Web3 applications the day after blockchain halted

“But if they fail to stifle such events, then other L1s [layer-1 blockchains] will continue to eat away at its market share,” he noted.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.