Solana price is on the rise today, showing an increase of over 10% in the last 24 hours, reaching $136.60 on May 2nd. This represents a 15% increase from the week’s lowest level of $118.90 seen one day earlier. The recovery in SOL came after significant drops due to fears of smaller interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
Why Is Solana Rising?
Today’s news highlights that Jito Labs, a company specializing in Solana infrastructure, has developed a reassessment solution similar to the service offered by EigenLayer in the Ethereum ecosystem. The term restaking typically refers to a process where validators can stake existing Proof of Stake (PoS) assets across multiple layers without needing extra tokens, providing additional security and services.
Following the report, the total value locked (TVL) in Jito’s liquid staking smart contracts rose from 9.92 million SOL on May 1st to about 10.5 million SOL on May 2nd. During the same period, Solana’s TVL data increased from 26.45 million to 27.21 million SOL.
Overall rising DeFi data suggests that rumors about Jito’s restaking service have stimulated demand for SOL, pushing up the cryptocurrency’s price.
Solana and Bitcoin Integration
Today’s rise in Solana coincides with the announcement of a new inter-chain bridge service that connects Bitcoin with Solana, potentially launching in the third quarter.
The Zeus Program Library (ZPL) system, developed by Zeus Network, works with the Apollo bridge protocol to allow users to convert their Bitcoin into wrapped zBTC tokens using ZPL. These tokens can then be used in the Solana ecosystem for trading on decentralized exchanges, participating in the NFT market, and engaging in various activities such as borrowing, lending, gaming, and Social Fi platforms.
The integration of Bitcoin, one of the largest and most widely used cryptocurrencies, into Solana presents significant potential for increased transaction volume. This expectation could boost demand for SOL, necessary for network transaction fees, and possibly explain why investors responded positively to the Zeus Network announcement.
