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?
“How do you see it?”
Same as you! Used a couple of chains now and when all the hate for Solana started after FTX collapse, I was really wondering if those people ever actually used Solana and/or other chains…
Just now I decided once again to not just sit on my ETH and once again I am stunned by the gas fees. I mean Arbitrum might be cheaper, but last time I checked it was 2$ for a swap, while still being slower than Solana. Also I don’t like to use bridges. I respect Ethereums importance for the whole crypto space, but usability for retail users is far from perfect, while Solana just kills.
I also really like using Atom and Near, while the Near ecosystem still is quite small, but the project kind of went live when the bear market kicked off, so I’m looking forward to what’s next.
Nice! I like your perspective on Ethereum. It really is important for the overall ecosystem. And the Merge was a pretty incredible success from a technical perspective. I think all players in the space would be well-served to think that way. Its not about killing Ethereum, its about acknowledging that it might be good for some things and not as good for others.