Bitcoin is widely regarded as the original and first truly decentralized digital money, whose creation sparked an entire industry that reached a value of $3.9 trillion on October 13, 2025. It remains the reference point for all digital assets, providing open financial rails globally and acting as a benchmark against which the rest of the crypto market is measured.
But Bitcoin was just the beginning. A broader, more experimental universe of cryptoassets also exists: projects that often behave less like currencies and more like technology-driven start-ups. Like start-ups, they can be volatile and unpredictable, but sometimes deliver exceptional growth and long-term adoption.
For investors, the question is no longer whether to look beyond $BTC (+0.25%) should look beyond, but where. Which networks and tokens are actually building something that will last?
Beyond Bitcoin: Why look at altcoins?
This does not mean that the rest of the digital asset universe should be ignored. For investors, the key question is not whether to look beyond Bitcoin, but where. Which networks and tokens are actually creating sustainable value?
One answer is Solana.
Solana and its native token $SOL (+0.59%) have become one of the clearest examples of both the potential and the risks of the digital asset class. In April 2020, the SOL price was around 0.22 US dollars. By November 2021, it had risen to over USD 250 - an increase of more than 113,000% in just 588 days. Then came the crash: by January 2023, SOL had fallen by almost 97% and was close to USD 10. For many, the story seemed to end there: another speculative bubble that crumbled into insignificance.
But less than 1,000 days later, SOL is hovering around USD 200 again. What seemed to be over became one of the most unexpected comebacks in the crypto world.
The story of the comeback
Solana's darkest moment came during the collapse of FTX in November 2022. The once largest exchange in the world had close ties to Solana through its trading firm Alameda Research and its decentralized exchange Serum, which was built on the Solana blockchain. When FTX collapsed, Solana was immediately branded the "FTX coin".
Investors feared a flood of released tokens flooding the market, and confidence evaporated almost overnight. The narrative was brutal: if FTX falls, Solana falls with it.
But that is exactly what did not happen. Despite the panic, Solana's network continued to run uninterrupted. The security model held, the validators kept working, and the core developers kept building. Lily Liu, president of the Solana Foundation, later said in an interview with CoinShares:
"Many people thought Solana was dead, absolutely certain that it was destroyed. But what never changed: No one abandoned the project and everyone kept building."
Collapse of market sentiment
From its peak in November 2021 to January 2023, SOL's decline reflected the collapse of sentiment in the crypto market as a whole. Projects with weaker communities or limited use cases disappeared completely. Many compared Solana to previous "Ethereum killers" such as EOS or NEAR, which never recovered from their crashes.
Within the Solana community, morale was fragile. Developers questioned whether it was worth continuing, and investors withdrew en masse. But as Liu pointed out, the core developers stayed:
"At the all-time low, emotions were different. But no one ever intended to leave. We just thought: now is the time to rebuild."
It is against this backdrop that Solana's resurgence must be assessed. The greater the doubt, the more remarkable the recovery.
From 2023 to the resurrection
Solana's journey could easily have ended in 2022. Projects that survive both a loss of reputation and repeated technical failures rarely come back, and history is full of tokens that quietly disappeared after similar crises. But Solana's story was different. What looked like the end became a new beginning.
From 2023 onwards, technical improvements, a loyal community and new institutional partnerships created the conditions for a revival. The ecosystem moved from survival mode to expansion, positioning Solana as one of the most dynamic platforms in the industry. Once stability issues were under control, Solana turned its focus to applications that could prove the blockchain's relevance. Unlike Bitcoin, whose main use case is the store of value, Solana positioned itself as an infrastructure for user-centric products.
Lily Liu explained:
"By the end of 2024, we became number one in terms of actual economic value captured, then also number one in application revenue, and also the fastest growing developer ecosystem. Part of the Solana ethos from the beginning has been that the network is continuously improving."
From a low of around $8 in December 2022, Solana has risen more than 2,600% from its floor price. Solana's recovery has surprised critics and forced investors to recognize its resilience. Few could have imagined that Solana, once written off, would return to being one of the preferred platforms for developers, investors and institutions.
The unexpected comeback
Solana's turning point began rather quietly in 2023. While public attention was focused on FTX's bankruptcy, engineers concentrated on stability, bug fixes and performance improvements. Once the network was working reliably, attention turned back to the most important things: real-world use cases.
Unlike Bitcoin, which primarily serves as a store of value, Solana positioned itself as an infrastructure for applications. It became the backbone for developers building products for end users.
The reconstruction was evident on several levels.
The moment Solana regained credibility was September 5, 2023, when Visa extended its stablecoin settlements to the Solana blockchain. This was not an experiment, but a live integration. Visa began settling millions of USDC transactions directly on Solana and Ethereum, in partnership with acquirers such as Worldpay and Nuvei.
For consumers, nothing changed: a coffee paid for with Visa was still settled immediately. Behind the scenes, however, the payment channel was different. Instead of using expensive, slow transfers, Visa could now move funds almost free of charge and in 400 milliseconds block time. Treasury operations were suddenly running at internet speed.
Symbolically, this moment was as significant as it was technologically. Visa's integration marked Solana's transition from an "experimental chain" to institutionally credible financial infrastructure.
As a result, Solana Pay gained momentum as a lightweight protocol for direct merchant payments. Cafés, online stores and small retailers began accepting stablecoins - a quiet but significant step towards mainstream utility.
Solana's comeback was as much cultural as technical. The network became home to memecoins, internet-powered tokens that turned speculation into social interaction. With fast transactions and minimal fees, Solana provided the perfect environment for this new wave of experimentation.
Tokens like Bonk and platforms like Pump.fun made it easy for anyone to launch new coins and helped build grassroots communities around gamified assets. These tokens, often humorous, became surprisingly powerful tools for engagement - fostering creativity, user onboarding and liquidity.
By January 2025, Solana's cultural reach reached new heights when Donald Trump launched his $TRUMP token on the network, just days before his inauguration. This launch underscored Solana's status as the platform of choice for viral tokens and attention-grabbing experiments.
More importantly, institutional capital was finally arriving. BlackRock extended its $2.9 billion BUIDL fund to Solana, while Franklin Templeton launched its tokenized FOBXX fund on the chain. Together, these moves lifted Solana's market for tokenized real assets to a record $671 million, proving that the Chain has matured from experimental to institutional platform.
This wave of validation confirmed Solana's place in the global financial system. What was once a high-speed blockchain for developers has evolved into a key component of the digital financial system supporting payments, markets and real-world assets.
As Lily Liu said in her CoinShares interview:
"We have the full spectrum, at one end money market funds from some of our most respected institutions and at the other end memecoins, about which opinions are divided."
Bitcoin as an anchor, altcoins for growth
Bitcoin remains the anchor of the digital financial world: decentralized, stable and resistant to censorship. It continues to serve as digital gold, a hedge against currency devaluation and the basis of the crypto-economy.
But beyond Bitcoin, networks like Solana show that the next phase of blockchain innovation is driven by utility, not ideology. Stablecoins move billions of dollars every day. DeFi platforms offer open liquidity. Solana shows that powerful chains can support real users, products and revenue.
For investors, the lesson is clear: the broader digital asset landscape works more like venture capital: most projects fail, while a small handful achieve market transformation. Altcoins should not be equated with Bitcoin, but selective exposure can offer above-average opportunities.
