Binance Coin (BNB) has overtaken Solana (SOL) in market capitalization, solidifying its position as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency in the market.

This shift comes in the wake of a strong price rally for BNB, while Solana struggled with recent declines.

BNB Up, Solana Down

At the time of this writing, BNB’s market cap stood at $102.9 billion, about $8.5 billion higher than SOL’s valuation. The asset soared 11.8% in the last 24 hours, reaching an intra-day high of $720 before settling around $705.

Over the past seven days, BNB surged 22%, outpacing the broader crypto market as well as other smart contract platforms, which have barely moved. The token is still in the green across two weeks and over the previous month, although the gains are much more modest: 4.3% and 2.7%, respectively.

Meanwhile, Solana has taken a hit, slipping 4.1% in the last week and a more pronounced 19.2% across the past fortnight. Since yesterday, its price has fluctuated between $189 and $20, stabilizing at $193.

Market Conditions

The drop in SOL comes as broader market volatility affects altcoins, with assets like OM and RAY posting even steeper losses. Bitcoin, too, attempted to break past $98,000 but faced strong resistance, pulling back to $96,000.

The turbulence led to the sector losing more than $80 billion from its overall value in just 24 hours. However, BNB’s positional jump has coincided with a Binance Chain announcement of a major upgrade for 2025. The blockchain will implement faster transaction speeds, AI-driven innovations, and gasless payments.

Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao confirmed the intended update in a recent X post, where he stressed sub-second block times and artificial intelligence integration.

On the other hand, Solana has had a good run in the retail decentralized exchange (DEX) sector, with a recent report indicating it made up nearly half of total DEX volumes. About 60% of activities were driven by the popular meme coin launchpad Pump.fun.

So huge was the meme coin scene on the network that at some point last month, search volumes for the term “buy Solana” reached the highest scores on Google Trends, pushed by the launch of the Official Trump token.