Solana [SOL] witnesses steady growth as positive developments spur ecosystem

• On a weekly basis, SOL surged 9.14%, bolstered by numerous positive developments in the ecosystem.
• Interest for SOL in the derivatives market increased, reflected by a sharp increase in Open Interest.

Solana [SOL] was one of the top gainers in the crypto market at the time of writing, recording a 24-hour gain of 3.29%, according to CoinMarketCap. On a weekly basis, the coin surged 9.14%, bolstered by numerous positive developments in the ecosystem.

One of the biggest was the migration of Helium [HNT] to the Solana mainnet, marking one of the biggest transitions in the decentralized network history. Apart from this, the launch of a first-of-its-kind real-time carbon emissions tracking portal also added bullish strength to SOL.

And the positive momentum might continue for some more time as another big-ticket partnership was forged.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the Solana Profit Calculator

It’s a ‘Master’ deal

Payments giant Mastercard announced a tie-up with top blockchain companies, including Solana, to create a new set of standards, dubbed as the Crypto Credential. Through an official statement, Mastercard said that the Crypto Credential will build a set of industry-wide standards and infrastructure to ensure trusted interactions between customers and companies using blockchain networks.

The payments company added that the new set of standards will also provide necessary enabling technology to help bring more use cases to life.

At #Consensus23, we announced how we are instilling trust in the blockchain ecosystem through Mastercard Crypto Credential. With crypto wallet providers @Bit2Me_Global, @LiriumAG , @MercadoBitcoin and @UpholdInc and public blockchain network organizations @AptosLabs,… pic.twitter.com/P33mtDVAas

— Mastercard News (@MastercardNews) April 28, 2023

Decoding Solana’s on-chain activity

The news of the collaboration showed immediate results as the number of active users on the Solana network increased by 4% in the last 24 hours, according to Token Terminal. Although, it should be noted that on a weekly basis, the user base has contracted by 9%.

However, the growth in users failed to provide a significant boost to trading volume. This led to transaction fees collected on the network declining by 0.8% in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, NFT activity gathered pace over the last week. NFT sales worth more than $28 million were settled on the chain, representing a marginal increase of 0.41%, data from CryptoSlam revealed. There was a sharp rise in the number of buyers and sellers, increasing by 43.92% and 26.29% respectively.

A reason behind the spike could be the recent launch of ChatGPT plugin, which allows users to purchase NFTs via the ChatGPT user interface.

Realistic or not, here’s SOL’s market cap in BTC terms

SOL’s derivatives demand hits the roof

Interest for SOL in the derivatives market increased, reflected by a sharp increase in Open Interest (OI), data from Coinglass showed. SOL’s OI surged 13.54% in the last 24 hours to reach $295.56 million at press time.

The OI surged 22% over the last week, and combined with the price increase, signaled bullish momentum.