Ethereum Founder Suddenly Powers A Shock FTX Crypto Price Rally As Bitcoin Struggles

Bitcoin
BTC
, ethereum and most other major cryptocurrencies have seen their prices fall sharply over the last month of 2022 after the FTX collapse wiped out confidence and pushed other crypto companies to the edge.

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The bitcoin price has plummeted under $17,000 per bitcoin, down from almost $50,000 this time last year. Ethereum
ETH
has seen similar declines while FTX-linked cryptocurrencies such as solana have seen even steeper declines.

Now, ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin has spurred a rally for the ethereum rival solana, causing it to surge over 10% by predicting it has a “bright future” despite FTX’s demise.

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“Some smart people tell me there is an earnest smart developer community in solana, and now that the awful opportunistic money people have been washed out, the chain has a bright future,” Buterin posted to Twitter. “Hard for me to tell from outside, but I hope the community gets its fair chance to thrive.”

Solana
SOL
, a cryptocurrency that had seen a huge price rally through 2021 and has won market share from ethereum, had been heavily backed by FTX and the exchange’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

The solana price hit a record-high of just over $250 per sol, giving the network a market capitalization of almost $80 billion. Following the bitcoin, ethereum and broader crypto price crash that’s wiped over $2 trillion from the combined crypto market, solana’s market cap has fallen to just $4 billion.

The ethereum rival has been touted as a “third-generation” blockchain, following first generation bitcoin and second-generation ethereum, boasting rapid transaction rates, low fees and scalability relative to other cryptocurrencies. However, the network has suffered from outages and accusations of centralization.

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Over the last two years, solana has been helped by backing from technology investors Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks.

“I was able to see a little bit under the hood of Solana Pay, and that’s really exciting,” Palihapitiya said on an episode of the All-In podcast alongside Sacks in April 2022. “[Solana and blockchain] is like a swarm of activity to dismantle these payments businesses,” referring to Visa and MasterCard.