Solana Reaches April Peak Amid ETF Launches and Coinbase Upgrades

Solana’s price rose to nearly $136, its highest in April, driven by Canadian ETF launches and Coinbase infrastructure upgrades. SOL increased by 6% for the day and 23% in the past week, outperforming other major cryptocurrencies. Recent events include the introduction of spot Solana ETFs, which offer staking capabilities, and Coinbase’s enhancements to transaction processing.

On Thursday, the price of Solana (SOL) climbed to its highest point in April, reaching nearly $136, boosted by the launch of multiple Solana ETFs in Canada and infrastructure upgrades announced by Coinbase. This rise represents a 6% increase for the day, surpassing gains from Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP, among other leading cryptocurrencies. Over the past week, SOL has surged approximately 23%, making it one of the top gainers among the top 100 cryptocurrencies.

The recent price upturn is attributed to the launch of Canada’s first spot Solana ETFs, which allowed investors to earn yields by staking their SOL to support the blockchain. Issuers involved include 3iQ, Evolve, CI, and Purpose. In the U.S., similar spot Solana ETFs have not yet received approval, although firms like VanEck and 21Shares are pursuing applications with the SEC.

The recent increases in SOL’s value follow Coinbase’s announcement of significant infrastructure upgrades designed to enhance transaction speed and reliability. The updates include asynchronous transaction processing, improving block throughput by five times, and leveraging bare metal machines for a fourfold improvement in RPC performance. Enhanced failover and liquidity optimisations aim to address previous transaction delays experienced on the platform.

In January, Coinbase acknowledged the need to improve Solana transaction handling due to criticism surrounding delays. As part of its commitment, Coinbase stated the importance of scaling its infrastructure and offering native support for popular use cases, including trading on decentralized exchanges and meme coins.

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