Cheatsheet: Solana never closer to flipping Ethereum (but still far away)

This is Cheatsheet, a primer on what’s happening in crypto today.

Bitcoin is still taking a breather, causing the rest of the market to twiddle its thumbs.

Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) were down around 3% a piece as of 7 am ET, with the former hovering around $64,700 — 12% below the all-time high set earlier this month — and the latter at $3,430. ETH is still 30% below its own price record from 2021.

Most top-100 cryptocurrencies are red over the past day, with only about a dozen or so ahead by 2%. 

Fantom (FTM), the native token for the hyped layer-1 from the previous cycle, is the best performer with 11%, followed by internet computer (ICP) and Axie Infinity-adjacent ronin (RON), which have added 8.9% and 6.5%, respectively.

More buzzy cryptocurrencies have fared the worst. Decentralized computing token bittensor (TAO), is down 9.4% while memecoin floki (FLOKI), has lost 8.4%. Solana (SOL) and DEX asset jupiter (JUP) are close behind, having tumbled 8%.

Solana dog coins bonk (BONK) and dogwifhat (WIF) have been clobbered, each shedding close to a quarter of their value. Worldcoin (WLD) has meanwhile tanked nearly 16%.

On-chain mail

Ethereum has long had a target on its back. Now, after years of fending off “Ethereum killers,” it’s facing increasingly stiff competition.

• Solana was the top blockchain for DEX volumes over the past week: $21.55 billion to Ethereum’s $19.37 billion (largely attributable to memecoin mania).
• Ethereum still beats Solana after counting layer-2 DEX volumes on Arbitrium, Base and Optimism, altogether worth more than $9.3 billion. 
• Solana has seen more than double the number of unique active signers than Ethereum over the past week, peaking at over 2 million on Mar. 17 to Ethereum’s 456,000, per Blockworks Research data

It’s possible that Solana’s cheapness relative to Ethereum has brought on the recent explosion in activity. Cheaper transactions make it far more attractive to trade repeatedly on-chain, which can convert to higher volumes.

On Ethereum mainnet, the median transaction fee has been anywhere from $13.45 to $5 throughout March. Solana’s median was about $0.004 this week, even after exploding 400% (Solana’s average fee has meanwhile hit $0.06, up 1,100% from half a cent at the start of the month).

Ethereum users seeking transactions as cheap as Solana can now easily find them, however. The recent Dencun hard fork solidified Ethereum’s utility as a fairer settlement layer for its many layer-2 networks. Arbitrum and Optimism transactions currently cost less than $0.10.

Read more: The biggest Ethereum upgrade ever goes live

• Solana is closer than ever to flipping ether — its market cap is the equivalent of 19% of ETH, up from less than 4% this time last year.
• SOL eclipsing the third most valuable native crypto, BNB, for good seems far more imminent. SOL has even briefly flipped BNB multiple times over the past month and a half.
• ETH is however now much further away from flipping bitcoin, after losing ground since September 2022.

Crypto business

Bitcoin mining stocks are staging recoveries after a brutal few weeks being dragged by concerns around profitability after the next halving.

• About half of the two dozen mining stocks outperformed the S&P 500 on Thursday, with Gryphon and Cipher leading the pack with 9.7% and 6.15%.
• Ohio-based Griid Infrastructure, which debuted on the Nasdaq in January, is set to open Friday 40% higher after a sudden premarket pump. No direct catalyst is immediately apparent.
• Hong Kong’s BIT Mining and Bitmain spinoff Bitdeer were laggards across the day and after-hours sessions, altogether slipping 5.16% and 6.75%.

Crypto stocks overall are still struggling compared to broader benchmark indexes, with only five outperforming the 5% gains made by S&P and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 over the past month.

MicroStrategy (130%), Coinbase (51%), Cipher Mining (38%), CleanSpark (22.5%) and Bitdeer (10%) are so far crypto’s star performers.

The market has clear concerns about Gryphon, BIT Mining, Bitfarms, Canaan, Hive and Riot, with each losing more than a quarter of their value over the past month. China-headquartered SOS, it turns out, is aptly named, having collapsed an eye-twitching 60%.

Read more: Why most bitcoin mining stocks are down amid a persistent crypto rally

• A raft of executives at crypto companies have sold company stock over the past month, according to OpenInsider data compiled by Blockworks.
• Led by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and MicroStrategy chairman Michael Saylor, insiders at Coinbase, MicroStrategy, Riot, Stronghold and CleanSpark have altogether offloaded shares worth $480 million since this time in February. 
• Core Scientific directors, alongside new CEO Adam Sullivan, have otherwise bet on their own company, buying $1.23 million in shares last week for an average price of $3.16. CORZ is up 10% since then. 

On the ground

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