In 2021, Solana emerged as the biggest Ethereum killer, surpassing the cryptocurrency that was once considered unbeatable. However, it faced significant setbacks last year with the FTX collapse. Nevertheless, the network managed to stay afloat. Despite many popular projects transferring to rival networks, Solana’s Total Value Locked (TVL) is recovering. Moreover, the latest major update could further increase interest in the network.
Solana (SOL) Update
According to the latest announcement by infrastructure provider Helius Labs, the recent V1.16 update has been accepted by the majority of nodes. V1.16 has been working on the testnet since June.
This update brings many innovations and enhances Solana’s existing token functionality with a new token program called Confidential Transfers. This feature allows for the hiding of essential details such as transaction amounts, enabling transactions to be made. In a way, we can say that privacy support is coming to the Solana network.
Mert Mumtaz, co-founder and CEO of Helius, said that this is a significant development, but not enough people are aware of it. Zero-knowledge proofs are used to encrypt the balances and transaction amounts of Solana Program Library (SPL) tokens, fulfilling the privacy needs of users to some extent.
Additionally, this update significantly reduces the RAM usage requirements for validators. Yanshu Yadav, the growth leader of staking service provider Luganodes, stated that RAM usage has decreased from 120GB to 39GB since the v1.16 version.
Not all features have been announced yet.
Solana (SOL) Commentary
At the time of writing this popular cryptocurrency article, SOL is trading at $22.94. Despite fluctuations in BTC price, SOL Coin continues to hover around $23. To sustain the upward momentum, it needs to close above $21.83.
This week, the $24.70 resistance level has not been overcome. Above this level, the $27 resistance has caused double-digit losses for the price multiple times. If the positive trend in BTC price continues, the $27 and $32 resistance levels may be tested again. To reverse the downtrend, the SOL Coin price needs to surpass $32. After that, a rally towards $38 and $47 could occur.
