Cardano (ADA) vs Solana (SOL): better crypto to buy in 2024?

Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL) are some of the most popular blockchain networks in the industry. They are multi-billion entities with a combined market cap of over $61 billion. In this case, the two are more valuable than some well-known companies like Ford, General Motors, Teladoc, and Estee Lauder. So, which is the better buy between SOL and ADA?

Why Solana is a better buy than Cardano

Cardano and Solana are blockchain networks that are built to do the same thing. They are used by developers to run their decentralized applications (dApps) in key industries like gaming, decentralized finance (DeFi), and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT). 

In this case, there are several reasons why Solana is a better investment than Cardano by far. First, Cardano is often described as a ghost chain, meaning a blockchain that is not backed by any meaningful applications.

A closer look at Cardano’s ecosystem shows that it only has a few developers. According to DeFi Llama, Cardano has 33 DeFi applications in its network compared to Solana’s 123. As a result, Cardano has a TVL of $347 million compared to Solana’s $1.4 billion.

TVL is not the only data you should look at when assessing an ecosystem. For example, you should look at whether any people are using these DEXes and lending protocols. Data by CoinMarketCap shows that Minswap, Solana’s biggest DEX handled just $2.9 million in transactions in the past 24 hours.

On the other hand, Solana’s Orca and Raydium are in the top ten in terms of transaction volume. Only platforms like Uniswap, dYdX, and Kine Protocol are bigger. And, a while ago, Solana handled more DEX volume than Ethereum.

Another reason why Cardano is an $18 billion ghost chain is that it has minimal stablecoins in its ecosystem. Data shows that it only has $18 million of stables while Solana has over $1.8 billion. 

But Cardano is peer-reviewed, right?

Turning to the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) industry, we see that there is little activity going on in Cardano. Data by CryptoSlam shows that the total NFT sales in Solana stands at over $4.7 billion. It has had over 1.9 million buyers and 1.49 million sellers. Cardano, on the other hand, has handled $631 million sales with 1.28 million and 668k buyers and sellers, respectively.

Meanwhile, Solana has more transactions than Cardano. Data by Cardanoscan shows that ADA has had over 83 million transactions while Cardano has more than 262 million. These numbers, however, can be deceiving, which partly explains why Cardano is still a $18 billion entity. In most cases, retail traders buy Cardano because it is heavily promoted by brokers.

Another reason why Cardano tends to attract attention is the claim that it is peer-reviewed. Developers claim that it has over 100 published papers on the network. You can find some of these papers here. However, in reality, all these papers mean nothing if the platform cannot attract developers.

Cardano vs Solana performance

SOL vs ADA price chart

The final reason why Solana is a better crypto to buy than Cardano is its historic performance. In the past five years, Solana token has surged by almost 200% while Cardano is down by over 50%. Some of Solana’s gains came in 2023 when it jumped from $8 to over $120. 

Solana’s rally was because of the strong ecosystem growth and the popularity of the likes of Bonk and Samodeycoin. It also attracted more developers, including well-known names like Helium and Hivemapper. Therefore, Solana will likely outperform Cardano in the future.