Solana’s native token SOL has so far delivered a parabolic performance this week after the bulls pushed it past its previous all-time high and into new territory. Its impressive rally was fueled by strong buying pressure backed by strong growth and adoption.

Solana crossed above its previous ATH of $58.38 on Monday but the strong bullishness pushed it to a new ATH at $75.15 on Tuesday. However, the price has since then pulled back slightly and is currently trading at $68.72 which is down by 5.72% in the last 24 hours at the time of this press. However, its price performance in the last 7 days indicates that it is still in the green by more than 63%.

Source: Binance

SOL’s strong price uptick during the weekend reflects a surge in buying volume during the same period. The price experienced increased volatility on its way up, largely because it was deep in the overbought zone and some traders took profit, thus causing the slight pullback after reaching the ATH. However, the price has been recovering and it looks like the bullish momentum might test the ATH once again.

Why is SOL rallying?

SOL was already enjoying a nice bullish run in line with the rest of the crypto market. However, the rally got turbocharged during the weekend leading to bigger gains. This was after it was reported that the Solana network has achieved more than 24 billion transactions in the last 18 months. In contrast, rival network Ethereum has so far only achieved 1.2 billion transactions since 2015.

While the impressive achievement noted above highlights strong network growth, it is largely thanks to the Solana network’s robust capacity. Many of the top blockchains have been struggling with scalability limitations and high transaction costs. Meanwhile, Solana already handles roughly 6,100 transactions per second which is higher than Visa’s transaction throughput. Solana also claims that it can scale up its production capacity to 50,000 TPS.

Solana’s high transaction throughput makes it attractive to developers looking to luanch their decentralized offerings. The network currently hosts the Serum DEX which is one of the dapps that have been contributing to Solana’s robust growth. The network has so far achieved $1.96 billion total value locked in DeFi. Just a week ago, another decentralized exchange called Mango conducted a token sale through which it managed to raise $70.5 million, earning a spot among the biggest DeFi token sales.

What makes Solana unique from rival blockchain networks?

Solana overcomes the blockchain trilemma and achieves impressive transaction speeds without a compromise on security or decentralization thanks to its unique consensus algorithm that includes an internal clock. Solana is the first blockchain to build an internal clock that allows rapid transaction recording without requiring validators to confirm with each other.

The combination of high transaction throughput and low fees is the perfect combination that has enabled Solana to grow its user base at an exponential rate. This trend is expected to continue as more developers embrace Solana’s superior network, which means more potential value which will positively influence SOL’s performance.