Opportunity After 60% Plunge? Is Now the Time to Buy Solana and Cardano?

▲ Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) / ChatGPT-generated image ©

Despite plunging 50–60% over the past year, Solana and Cardano are once again being mentioned as high-conviction picks worth accumulating before a potential market rebound.

According to investment media outlet The Motley Fool on February 21 (local time), Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) have fallen more than 50% and 60%, respectively, over the past 12 months. The broader altcoin market was hit hard as rising U.S. Treasury yields, weakened expectations for interest rate cuts, a more conservative institutional investment stance, and large-scale profit-taking driven by leveraged liquidations converged. During the same period, their declines were steeper than those of ‘blue-chip’ assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

Both projects operate on proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains. Unlike Bitcoin, they cannot be mined and instead offer reward structures through staking. They also support smart contracts, enabling the development of decentralized applications and tokenized assets. As a result, their valuations are driven less by scarcity and more by developer ecosystem growth and network utilization.

Solana has a circulating supply of 620.8 million tokens with no maximum cap. By combining its native proof-of-stake (PoS) system with proof-of-history (PoH), it maximizes speed by processing transactions using a pre-timestamping method. Cardano has a circulating supply of 36.01 billion tokens with a maximum supply capped at 45 billion. Through its proprietary PoS system, Ouroboros, it efficiently allocates time slots and prioritizes security and stability by requiring formal peer review for all projects.

In terms of transaction speed, Solana is faster than Cardano, and both networks offer higher throughput than Ethereum Layer 1 (L1). While Ethereum remains the largest developer blockchain, Solana is widely regarded as the fastest-growing in terms of expansion. Cardano has also at times surpassed Ethereum in GitHub activity based on core projects. Their partnership strategies differ as well: Solana collaborates with finance and consumer-focused companies, while Cardano concentrates on enterprises, governments, education, and infrastructure sectors.

The outlet noted that amid the market downturn, Solana and Cardano may have been subjected to indiscriminate selling alongside meme coins. However, given their differentiated technological strengths, scalability, and ecosystem growth compared to Ethereum, both projects could see relatively faster recoveries once the crypto winter ends.

*Disclaimer: This article is for investment reference only and the publisher is not responsible for any investment losses incurred based on this information. The content should be interpreted solely for informational purposes.*