Sharing my quick perspective, and interested to hear yours.
My vantage point:
- I have been “in” since 2016.
- More significant allocations and DCA to BTC, ETH in 2018.
- 2019-2021 accumulated the L1 “Ethereum Killers.” Held tight in 2021 and 2022, did a little Ethereum DeFi activity, in 2021-2022… impressed by the innovation, but high fees and complexity definitely held me back from doing more.
- Acquired SOL in 2021-ish… didn’t use it, didn’t sell it, just sat delegated to a validator through Solflare (https://www.reddit.com/r/solflare/).
- I would joke about Solana that being the blockchain that can just turn off and re-org as it wishes… not a good look.
Now:
- Late 2023: Sentiments are picking up. I saw some hype about BONK (too bad I was delegated so didn’t receive the drop, I guess that’s why). Looked fun.
- Also heard about Jupiter, and wanted to try.
- Got the Solsnap integration for Metamask.
- Unlocked my SOL and made some swaps on jupiter.
- Found Raydium, added to a Pool. Did some Raydium swaps, etc.
Conclusions:
- Solana, the apps noted above and the others I have uses are simply the BEST crypto experience I have experienced since 2016.
- Yes, my BTC remains my harder money, but SOL (and memecoining) is the fastest most seamless and least expensive financial experience ever.
- I sold all the “new L1” coins I had. Tezos, DOT, HBAR, Algo, AVAX, etc. Just trying to take that shit out of self custody and find a place to reliably sell or bridge was a massive pain. It felt like writing a check and waiting for it to clear with BoomerBank all over again (frankly worse).
- AVAX takes the cake - that is the most overly complex, ill-documented, unsupported tech I have ever seen… and thus, its useless, and will remain so.
Realization:
- Solana seems to have the most well documented, well supported, low fee, seamless and easy to use L1 infrastructure.
- ***Easy to use, addicting UX, and truly self-executing and decentralized finance apps that a real person can use to be their own sovereign bank, market maker, etc. WILL WIN IN THE NEXT CYCLE. (***Yes, there is high price correlation among all L1 tokens in the market, but price isn’t everything - capturing active user base and developer talent and interest is what will pump and sustain SOL for the longer term.)
TLDR:
- I’ve done enough to know a bit.
- I’ve interacted with a bunch of other L1’s DeFi apps, wallets, etc. (its really not fun).
- If you want to quit crypto, try doing anything on Avalanche, its like touching a hot stovetop.
- Solana’s overall experience is a winner (and its fun).
- Thus, Solana, and projects on Solana, have the chance to be the standout winner/s in this cycle (by price appreciation, but also longer term userbase capture, developer interest, and protocol/business investments/startups.
How do you see it?
I think sol defi will take a good chunk of eth’s this next cycle. I always used it from the get go in early Q1 and didn’t really look back.
Do use a bit of eth but it really stinks to have to check gas fees to make a trade.
haha, for sure… and if you’re like me… you just let the transaction sit pending in metamask and hope the fees go down… then you get tired of waiting and just confirm it.