The New Flippening: Why Solana Eclipses Ethereum Before $ETH Flips $BTC

The Ethereum community has long prophesied that ETH would one day surpass BTC in value, heralding a fabled moment in crypto history: The Flippening.

However, as the years pass and the industry matures, Ethereum could find itself to be the victim of “The Flippening” rather than its orchestrator.

With Solana making all-time highs against Ethereum and dominating the legacy Layer-1 in a growing number of metrics, can the crypto community expect a different kind of Flippening?

SOL/ETH Hits ATH Weekly Close

For the second consecutive week, SOL/ETH has recorded an all-time high weekly close, continuing a consistent trend of outperformance throughout this crypto bull cycle. Up 29.47% in the past two weeks, SOL/ETH currently trades at $0.085.

In both asset value and network activity, Solana has dominated Ethereum this cycle. Over the last 18 months, Solana’s market capitalization has increased by over 650%, while Ethereum has struggled to replicate Solana’s success. At press time, Solana is a 173% move away from surpassing Ethereum’s market cap,

Amidst languishing price action, the crypto community has questioned the validity of “The Flippening”, a belief that Ethereum would eventually surpass Bitcoin’s market cap. With Ethereum still trading at the same price it was in October 2023, social media commentators have suggested that the prophesied “Flippening” could actually happen to Ethereum, not because of it.

While there is still over $125B in market capitalization separating crypto’s biggest Layer-1s, asset prices could be considered a lagging indicator. Over the past year, Solana has consistently eclipsed Ethereum in several critical onchain metrics.

Solana Flips Ethereum Staking Market Cap

On April 20, Solana briefly flipped Ethereum in staked market cap, meaning the total value of staked $SOL surpassed the total value of staked $ETH. 

While Ethereum has since reclaimed the lead, the metric suggests that Solana’s economic security, or the amount of funds needed to attack the network, rivals that of a blockchain over twice its size.

Solana’s competitive staked market cap is largely due to its high staking rate. While only 28.18% of circulating ETH is staked to the network, Solana’s staking rate currently sits at 64.86%, suggesting network participants are adequately incentivized to secure the network through staking emissions.

However, Ethereum supporters have refuted Solana’s growing strength in this area. As it stands, the Solana network doesn’t facilitate ‘slashing’. On Ethereum, validators can be punished for poor performance or malicious behaviour and have their stake ‘slashed’, or removed. 

Meanwhile, others have claimed that Solana’s high staking rate is a failure, rather than a success. One detractor argues that Solana’s generous staking emissions kill its use and adoption in the network’s DeFi ecosystem.

However, these claims don’t take into account Solana’s growing LST (Liquid Staking Token) economy. According to Blockworks data, 8.49% of circulating $SOL is liquid staked, compared to Ethereum’s liquid staking rate of ~11%.

On top of a surging staked market cap, Solana has emphatically passed Ethereum in several other key metrics, including DEX volume, active addresses, and developer growth.

Historically, discussion of any “flippening’ typically marks the top of that particular pair. However, while the ETH/BTC flippening is an apples-and-oranges comparison between two fundamentally different networks with diverging use cases, the SOL/ETH flippening is much easier to quantify.

Solana has steadily claimed more and more titles, dominance, and mindshare from Ethereum throughout the 2024/25 bull cycle. With more active accounts, higher trading volume, and growing economic security, Solana may yet continue to supplant Ethereum in other key metrics, ultimately leading to taking its crown as crypto’s most valuable Layer-1.

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