Etherscan, which operates an explorer for the Ethereum blockchain, is starting the year with new acquisitions related to the Solana blockchain.
On Jan. 3, Etherscan officially announced the acquisition of Solscan, a leading block explorer for the Solana ecosystem. It said that the acquisition is a “collaborative merging” that continues Etherscan’s efforts to expand blockchain data services across multiple networks.
Founded in 2021, Solscan has reportedly served over three million monthly users, while its community on X (formerly Twitter) has amassed more than 23,000 subscribers at the time of writing. The Solscan block explorer has many features familiar to users of Etherscan, including detailed address, token, transaction data, APIs, dashboards, and nonfungible tokens' (NFT) metadata.
Following the acquisition, Etherscan will continue to provide “credibly neutral and equitable access to blockchain data,” the announcement notes. The firm also plans to integrate additional features across different explorers and offer enhanced support.
“The Solscan team has proven their expertise over the years by offering detailed insights and analytics. Their expertise in making blockchain data accessible and user-friendly also aligns perfectly with our mission at Etherscan,” Etherscan CEO and co-founder Matthew Tan said.
Etherscan’s latest acquisition comes amid a significant surge in the price of Solana (SOL), the native cryptocurrency of the Solana blockchain.
On Dec. 22, Solana’s market capitalization briefly topped that of Binance Chain’s BNB (BNB), just a day after flipping the market value of XRP (XRP). The token has rallied 60% over the past 30 days, surging above $100 in late 2023 for the first time since 2022.
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At the time of writing, the Solana token is trading at $110, down 3.5% over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko. SOL is now the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, valued at nearly $47 billion.
Some industry observers have been speculating whether the SOL cryptocurrency could overtake Ether (ETH) one day. Solana reportedly briefly flipped Ethereum regarding daily decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volumes in late December.
In late December, Solana also overtook Ethereum in terms of global searches on Google, beating Ethereum with a score of 56 versus 50.
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