It doesn't matter
Why the only important thing for Solana is attention
Recently, I've noticed a ton of debate on Twitter about Solana. It seems to incite strong emotions in people, and, being a manchild, I find it all very amusing.
Despite the fact that I hold reasonable positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, I do try hard to prevent myself from falling into the maximalist camp for any particular coin.
Because that is where good ideas, nuance, and thoughtful thinking go to die.
Maximalism is where you spend more time defending your bags against random Twitter accounts than thinking critically or examining the potential path your precious tokens might take in the future.
It’s how you justify holding a position down 90% and then continue to hold it down a further 90% because you’ve convinced yourself its the decentralised Nintendo or something.
This week with Solana, we've seen all sorts of takes. From Jonah making his hyperbolic statement from a poorly researched position (weird because he usually has very insightful takes on 1000x).
To Bitcoin proponents criticising it for its poor initial launch distribution and explaining that for this reason, it's unlikely to achieve a monetary premium.
To CL calling it the next ADA. (more on this later and why I think it's a very good thing).
To Solana maximalists dropping everything to fight to the death online, ensuring that in every possible tweet they see about Solana, they let everyone know that Visa likes it.
And, of course, the funniest tweet of them all. Bitboy decides that he is now the Sultan of Solana, leader of the blockchain.
Truly incredible scenes.
But anyway, all of this is simply to say that in my mental model of Solana, none of this makes a difference AT ALL in the short term.
I don't think it actually matters that the tech is (maybe?) superior to Ethereum.
I don't think it matters that it supports central limit order books or has local fee markets.
What matters is that it has captured a huge amount of mindshare across all areas of crypto, and that is something that is very hard to achieve.
It's reminiscent of Ethereum during the last bull market when all anyone would talk about were memes like "ultrasound money" or the "triple halvening."
It reminds me of Cardano in the sense that people LOVE to criticise it. Meaning it comes up in conversation all the time, further increasing mindshare.
It reminds me of HEX in the sense that if you so much as whisper the word SOL across any social media platform, a horde of maximalists will turn up to explain to you why fee compression means it's 10x superior to the next best blockchain.
And ultimately, this is all that matters. Attention and people willing to believe in it, regardless of how rational that may be.
That's why I think the ADA comparison, which makes Solana maximalists so angry, is BAFFLING. THIS SHOULD BE THE MOST BULLISH THING EVER.
Cardano during the last bull run peaked with a Market Cap of $91 billion, despite having a non-working blockchain, close to zero apps, and being mercilessly laughed at by all of Crypto Twitter.
All they had to do was have a charismatic leader and an army of supporters.
Solana, for comparison, peaked at around $77 billion. It's a good performance, but it's clear that having all the tech in the world is meaningless when even Dogecoin can reach $10 billion more simply because a popular tech entrepreneur goes on national television to talk about it.
The cults attention is what drives the price. The price going up helps drive the narrative and the increased attention recruits new, freshly minted cult members.
The tech is meaningless if the price doesn't go up because the price is a function of attention, and thus, if it lacks attention, it's in the failed experiment zone.
But anyway, in summary, this is a roundabout way of explaining how I think about cryptos, and Solana is a good example of it.
I really don't care what narrative is used to explain why it's good. I just think it'll go up because it has all the makings of a cult. So, for this reason, I'm a holder!
I just try to avoid getting too sucked in; things can change fast, and the chances of it becoming the future of money are still exceedingly slim! It’s vastly more likely to go down 70% than to VanEcks bullish target of $3,211!
Also, please remember that I am an idiot. This is not financial advice. If you buy Solana because I said it's a bit like a cult, then we've probably collectively cursed it, and it'll turn out like one of those weird cults that gets ultra-shunned by society, with 35 members living in an underground bunker, eating nothing but canned food because they think that badgers are secretly plotting to take over the world.
Have a great Sunday!