The 2024-2025 bull run has started, Which of these altcoin gem projects will take the lead? Cardano, Solana, or the newcomer, Sui?
All eyes are currently on Solana and Sui, cause that’s where the party’s happening. But, can Cardano steal the shine in 2025? Cardano has been building silently, but is 2025 their year? And should $ADA be your priority over $SOL and $SUI? Which altcoin gem will dominate this bull run?
Table of Contents
ToggleLet’s do a brief intro into all 3 altcoin gem projects for those who might not be too familiar with either.
First up, Cardano is no stranger in crypto. They’ve been around since 2017 and have always played the long game. Cardano’s proof-of-stake blockchain, Ouroboros, is built on peer-reviewed research and scientific rigor. Unlike its competitors, Cardano focuses on sustainable scalability and security.
Cardano’s commitment to scientific research sets it apart. Every upgrade goes through rigorous academic review, ensuring the network is robust and secure.
Although critics say Cardano is too slow, they’ve been building behind the scenes. Cardano’s Hydra scaling solution and Voltaire era gave the platform a more decentralized and community-driven future.
What’s Cardano’s major use case? Cardano excels in smart contracts, decentralized finance (DeFi), and governance. Its ecosystem has recently gained traction, with DeFi protocols like Liqwid and Minswap driving user adoption.
Solana has been around since 2020, and is a fourth-generation blockchain designed for ultra-high-speed and low-cost transactions.
It uses a unique Proof-of-History (PoH) consensus combined with PoS, (Proof of stake) allowing it to handle thousands of transactions per second.
What’s Solana’s major edge?
Solana’s lightning-fast transaction speed and low fees make it suitable for real-time applications.
Solana’s ability to host complex dApps and scalability earned it the “Ethereum killer” title. So far, Solana has been one of the standout blockchain platforms.
Let’s talk about its primary use. Solana’s ecosystem is diverse, with strengths in DeFi, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and, interestingly, memecoin trading.
Some of the biggest memecoins of 2024 like Boom, are based on Solana. This popularity for speculative trading gives Solana an edge in attracting retail users. Asides memecoins, Solana also has some good, innovative projects like Solana Pay in its ecosystem.
Sui is the “newest kid on the block.” They had their mainnet launch last year and have been very successful since then. Sui was developed by ex-Meta engineers.
Sui’s core focus is on scalability and security at its core. Sui leverages the Move programming language to process transactions faster and easier.
What’s their edge? Sui focuses on parallel transaction processing. This allows it to scale without regular challenges. It also makes it particularly suited for resource-intensive apps like Web3 gaming and social apps.
Sui is carving out a niche in gaming, and DeFi is also a huge thing for them. Although they are new and have a smaller ecosystem, Sui is fast becoming a big deal in blockchain. They are currently 8th of all TVL, which is a decent position to be.
Despite not being as flashy as Solana or Sui, Cardano has been pretty impressive. Like I said earlier, they’ve been up by over 200% in the last 30 days. Cardano’s DeFi TVL recently hit a record $619 million.
Source: DeFiLlama
This is a pretty strong rally considering that Cardano had just $200 million in assets in September this year.
Solana is currently buzzing at the moment. The $SOL token has been up by over 36% in the last 30 days. Its ecosystem is also thriving, particularly in DeFi and memecoins. Several Solana apps recently recorded record fees and revenue, thanks to the network’s growth.
Solana also reached a major milestone recently. It hit its highest-ever weekly real economic value activity. This achievement highlights the growing adoption and use of Solana’s blockchain for real-world applications, including decentralized finance (DeFi), NFTs, and payment solutions.
Sui is absolutely on fire right now! It moved from just 78 cents to a jaw-dropping $3.77 in just a few months. Sui also had an all-time high in November. There are a lot of things going right for this blockchain platform.
Sui has seen an influx of new users and is attracting attention, and it’s not just from individuals—it’s from projects too. New and visiting projects are pulling in users who are diving into Sui’s ecosystem.
And let’s not forget about DeFi. Sui’s DeFi ecosystem is thriving, adding even more fuel to its progress.
The market sentiment for Sui, like Solana and Cardano, is on the good side. All 3 altcoin gem projects are riding on the wave of the improved market.
Cardano has been around for a couple of bull and bear markets, and it’s been one of the top survivors of these cycles. At its launch in 2017, Cardano traded at just $0.02. By January 2018, it soared to its first all-time high (ATH) of $1.32 during the crypto market boom.
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However, that run was short-lived, and ADA dropped to $0.14 by April and hit a low of $0.04 by the end of 2018.
In 2019 and 2020, ADA saw steady growth despite some market dips. Key moments like the Shelley testnet launch in June 2019 and the full implementation of Shelley in July 2020 helped push prices higher, with ADA hitting $0.21 by December 2020.
Then came the 2021 bull run. Cardano skyrocketed from $0.19 in January to $2.47 by May. The surge was largely fueled by excitement around the Alonzo upgrade that brought smart contract functionality. ADA peaked at an ATH of $3.10 in September before correcting to $1.37 by year-end.
ADA suffered huge blows in 2022, thanks to the general market collapse. But, like I said, Cardano is a survivor, and it is currently bouncing back, riding on the bull market.
Judging by ADA’s last performance in the bull market, we can expect it to easily surpass its ATH in this bull cycle.
Like Cardano, Solana has been around during a bull market, and was in fact one of the stars of the last cycle.
Solana’s surge is all thanks to the growing number of decentralized applications on the network. Solana’s ecosystem is also filled with a thriving DeFi and memecoin community.
Sui hasn’t been around for long. So, it doesn’t have as much historical data and record as Solana and Cardano. But it’s been pretty impressive. Sui’s ATL came a year ago at $0.3643. Sui has already hit a new ATH of $3.93 this bull market. So far, Sui is showing great growth potential in a bull market.
So what’s Cardano’s future like? Well, they’ve been working on a lot of stuff to ensure 2025 is the year. Don’t forget, Cardano is not the flashiest, but they certainly have a good foundation.
Cardano has been busy making big upgrades to its tech. The team recently launched Cardano Node v9.1.1, a key update that solved an issue with nodes replaying all the way from the very beginning of the blockchain during the Conway era.
On top of that, they rolled out a snapshot-converter tool. This tool fixes problems like memory leaks and helps with data conversion on the blockchain. It’s a huge step forward, making Cardano’s network faster, more reliable, and more efficient.
Beyond tech upgrades, Cardano has also been on some integrations. And the major one is bringing DeFi to Bitcoin.
Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, shared his vision of Cardano becoming a DeFi layer for Bitcoin. With the low fees introduced by the Babel update, Bitcoin users can pay for transactions with Bitcoin itself, even while using Cardano’s blockchain for faster and more scalable transactions.
Cardano’s network activity is also on the rise. Daily active addresses have seen a big jump. And data from IntoTheBlock highlights that new user addresses are at their highest since June 2023. People are noticing Cardano!
Hoskinson is also working closely with the Trump administration on crypto policies. His involvement is a big deal for Cardano. First, it adds credibility to Cardano. It could also attract more investors to the platform.
Solana has also made some striking updates. The Firedancer upgrade is the most exciting of all Solana updates. This upgrade is aimed at turbocharging Solana’s performance and scalability. Firerdancer will attract more users and developers to the network. And potentially increase demand for $SOL. So, the future looks bright for Solana.
Sui is also making lots of good moves. They had a recent partnership with Google Clouds. Thanks to this, Sui developers can tap into Google Clouds infrastructure.
Now, to the big question; will Cardano outperform Solana and Sui in 2025?
Cardano’s focus on research, scalability, and stability gives it a solid foundation. Cardano’s market cap is around $34 billion. Cardano still has room for growth. Experts believe $ADA can beat its current ATH in this bull market.
Judging by Cardano’s performance in previous bull markets, we can see $ADA around the $4 range. That’s over 3x in this bull cycle.
Solana’s speed and existing ecosystem make it a strong contender, but Solana has had some outages, which could be a concern about its reliability. However, some analysts believe $SOL could cross into the $300 zone at the end of the bull market.
Sui is still the new guy. But it has shown great strength. With a market cap of over $9 billion, Sui has good room for growth.
So, if Cardano can sustain its momentum and continue ecosystem growth, it could lead the pack. What do you think about these altcoin gem projects? Are you Team ADA, SOL, or SUI!
Disclaimer
The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to accepted levels of risk tolerance of the writer/reviewers, and their risk tolerance may be different from yours.
We are not responsible for any losses that you may incur as a result of any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments, so please do your due diligence. This article has been sponsored by Sui.
Copyright Altcoin Buzz Pte Ltd.
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