Barely two years old, SolanaSOL

is the 9th largest crypto by market cap and the 5th largest blockchain by TVL. If you got into crypto in 2021, it might be one of the first few you bought.

The young blockchain faces its first crypto winter, and here’s how they’re responding…

What Solana is and isn’t known for

Solana is built for speed and low-cost blockchain transactions — but is known for constantly going down. Despite its issues, investors and companies continue to bet on the ecosystem.

• NFT transaction volumes have “fallen off a cliff,” but Magic Eden, an NFT marketplace on Solana, managed to raise $130M at a massive $1.6B valuation last week.
• Magic Eden’s transaction volume is taking market share — even surpassing the largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, on some days.

Funding has dried up in many areas of the crypto world, so it’s promising to see a crypto project raise such a large amount during a bear market.

Solana’s next big bet is on hardware

Last week, Solana revealed their Android-based smartphone Saga — available in 2023. Smartphones are a logical next step to push web3 forward, but Solana is taking a massive step that might not pay out for years.

• The first iPhone was released in 2007. Apps were limited with terrible user experience.
• Web3 still has a terrible desktop user experience — and for non-crypto natives, it’s a steep learning curve.

So don’t expect the web3 mobile experience to improve for a while. Others tried building blockchain phones with little traction.

Solana will also have to figure out its network’s stability issues — especially when hardware devices come with their own security challenges. Having smartphones go down for hours won’t sit well with users.

Investors: Get used to the volatility

Solana’s tokenSOL

is down over 81% in 2022, but volatility is part of the crypto game. When it comes to investing in early-stage tech, it’s important to back smart founders with big ambitions in a growing industry. Solana’s Co-Founder Anatoly Yakovenko is one of those people.