Solana has emerged as a frontrunner in the cryptocurrency market this week, experiencing a remarkable surge that culminated in printing two bullish Marabozu candlesticks over the past two days.

The rally intensified after breaching minor resistance at $75 on Wednesday. Solana, currently the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, surged to $99.47 early Friday before a brief recoil as retail investors secured profits. Notably, after a 94% tumble in 2022, Solana has skyrocketed, boasting an impressive increase of over 870% in price year-to-date.

This surge in Solana’s price coincides with a surge in its trading volume, notably surpassing Ethereum’s daily Decentralized Exchange (DEX) volume for the third consecutive day. Per data from the onchain analytics platform Artemis, Solana’s daily DEX volume peaked at $1.55 billion on Friday, dwarfing Ethereum’s $1.21 billion.

The growing popularity of Solana is evident not just in its price surge but also in the surge of Google queries related to the cryptocurrency. According to Google Trends, from October to December, searches for “Solana” reached their highest level. This surge in interest is part of a broader trend in the blockchain space, with other search trends related to Solana base meme token BONK also gaining traction.

Notably, Solana’s rapid growth is not confined to its price and market cap alone. The blockchain has seen a substantial increase in the total volume of locked funds, reaching $1.308 billion as per data from DefiLlama, with key contributions from staking protocols like Marinade Finance, Jito and Marginfi Additionally, the number of active Solana addresses has surged by 240%, from 330,000 to 1.28 million, since the beginning of November.

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Additionally, on the development front, Solana has introduced several noteworthy protocols, including the GRASS protocol, which enables users to earn money from network bandwidth, and the Metaplex project’s new standard for immutable digital assets.

Moreover, hardware wallet maker Trezor added support for Solana and SPL tokens on Thursday, further solidifying Solana’s position in the market.

That said, as Solana inches closer to the $100 mark, its meme coin frenzy continues to drive the rally. With the blockchain’s speed, low fees, and the allure of meme coin issuances, Solana’s outperformance is expected to persist in the coming weeks.

At press time, SOL was trading at $94.67, reflecting a 9.16% surge over the past 24 hours.