Disclaimer: The information presented does not constitute financial, investment, trading or other advice and represents the opinion of the author only.
On July 20, the Solana [SOL] The Foundation has published its latest performance report. The report mentions an improvement in its network during the first half of 2023, measured by uptime and the ratio of non-voting transactions to voting.
SOL price rose almost 30% following Ripple news [XRP] secure a partial victory in its legal battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) July 13. But it could not sustain its price hike.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in its judgment that the sale of Ripple’s XRP tokens on crypto exchanges and although programmatic sales do not constitute investment contracts; therefore, it is not a security in this case. But the court also ruled that the institutional sale of XRP tokens violated federal securities laws.
The crypto industry instantly embraced the judgment, driving up prices on the tokens.
Even though SOL is billed as the “Ethereum [ETH] killer,” Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko seems to be on board with the idea of using Ethereum as a layer 2 for the Solana blockchain.
Could it be possible that Ethereum is a @solana L2? Probably more likely than you might think at first glance. L2s are bridge protocols that provide one-way security. In this setup, holders of solana assets on Ethereum would have the finality guarantee that they can go back… https://t.co/XE5ETsxGIW
— toly 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) July 2, 2023
Even Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin is an admirer of the Solana protocol. When the SEC sued Binance [BNB] and Coinbase [BASE] in early June, he labeled several altcoins, including SOL, as securities. Even Buterin regretted the way the regulator targets projects like Solana.
The only comment I’ll make is that I feel bad @solana and other projects are affected in this way. They don’t deserve it, and if ethereum ends up “winning” through all the other blockchains getting kicked off the exchanges, that’s not an honorable way to win, and in the long run…
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 30, 2023
Heading into 2023, SOL was hovering around the $10 support zone. It was already struggling with a downtrend that dated back to November 2021 when SOL was trading at $200. Just as investors began pricing in further losses in the crypto market in January, Bitcoin [BTC] spiked past $17,000 and shifted short-term sentiment to bullish.
Solana took massive advantage of this swing and saw gains of 175% in 21 days. However, it was unable to break through the $26-$28 resistance zone, which has served as support since June-November 2022.
Read Solana’s [SOL] Price Prediction 2023-24
The most bullish scenario of 2023, according to AMBCrypto’s prediction bot, could see SOL valued at $75.5. However, we can ask another bot for its opinion on Solana’s price, network health, and trajectory after giving it a few relevant data points.
Can we convince ChatGPT to make a Solana price prediction if we give it enough information?
ChatGPT has been a remarkable chatbot and the updates of last month made ChatGPT 4.0 quite impressive. It is a powerful and well-formed learning tool on a wide range of subjects. Still, we must remember that the bot is designed to mimic a human and is not necessarily guaranteed to be factually accurate. The jailbreak version of ChatGPT would probably be even more imprecise, as it is specifically instructed not to say no to anything the user asks.
And yet, it is possible to get some guesses from the chatbot about what the future might hold if we provide it with details of recent price movements.
So, what does ChatGPT think of Solana? Does she see a path to recovery from her recent setbacks? Based on transaction fees and transaction speeds, ChatGPT seems to think Solana will be an Ethereum killer.
Source: ChatGPT
We have yet to brief him on the challenges that Solana and SOL investors have faced in recent months. Let’s start with the biggest hole in investor confidence –
FTX, where the freefall began
Sam Bankman-Fried was one of the most vocal supporters of the Solana network. The community considered him a credible and smart entrepreneur who was the CEO of one of the biggest crypto exchanges, FTX. Even though Binance reigned supreme in terms of volume and token pairs, FTX got what it paid for. Competition is also good for the industry and serves customers.
Much has changed since then, and the SEC has accused Mr. Bankman-Fried of defrauding FTX stock investors, further alleging that he mixed FTX client funds with those of Alameda to make undisclosed risky investments. He faces more than 100 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
Not only did Solana’s reputation take a hit, but the foundation also sold a significant amount of SOL to FTX Trading and Alameda Research. This amounted to SOL 58.08 million, or 11% of the outstanding supply at the time FTX filed for bankruptcy. It was valued at nearly $1.1 billion at the time.
As expected, the price of Solana took a nosedive in November and fell 45% from November 11 to December 31, from $18.08 to $8. With FTX insolvency rumors circulating from November 5, SOL had already lost 50% the previous week, while trading near the $38 mark. This brought SOL’s total losses from November 5, 2022 to December 31, 2022 to 79.4%.
Source: ChatGPT
ChatGPT certainly looks bullish, and the start of 2023 has gone extraordinarily well for investors. And yet, some network issues surfaced, just as they did in 2022.
SOL gained 180% in January and February 2023, exceeding all expectations
From January 1 to February 20, Solana gained 179.88% on the price charts and fell from $9.69 to $27.12. The explosive rally was partially attributed to Bonk; a piece even introduced in the Solana ecosystem on the model of Shiba Inu.
Part of the total supply of 99 trillion was airdropped into the wallets of Solana users in December. The number of transactions per day was on a downward trend in the second half of December, but this reversed in early January.
Is your wallet green? Check out the Solana Profit Calculator
Soon, transactions accelerated once again. The introduction of the fun memecoin did a lot to steer the community away from the dark and depressing shadow that the FTX debacle had cast over Solana.
When fueled by on-chain data and price trends over the past few months, the jailbroken version of ChatGPT increased the price by $500 for Solana in Q3 2023.
Source: ChatGPT
The network has faced troublesome outages in recent months, which could hurt investor confidence. The chatbot accepted.
Source: Open AI
Forecasts aside, what does the price analysis tell us about Solana?
Some imbalances remain in the south
Source: SOL/USD, TradingView
At press time, SOL was trading at $25.8, reflecting a 6% drop in one week.
Its Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Money Flow Index (MFI) sat comfortably above the neutral 50 level. However, his On Balance Volume (OBV) showed a drop.
Its chart indicators show an ambiguous picture.
Conclusion
While ChatGPT predicts that the price of SOL will reach a high figure of $500 in the current quarter of this year, its measurements on the chart do not match this bullish price prediction. It is therefore crucial that traders do their own research before investing in any crypto asset.