Former Goldman Sachs executive Raoul Pal has recently disclosed being heavily invested in the native token of the Solana network, SOL.
Speaking during an interview on the Bankless podcast, Pal indicated that he allocated 80% of his crypto portfolio to SOL, while the rest is in meme coins, non-fungible tokens, and his digital assets-focused investment fund.
“I am 80% SOL. All of my ETH is now NFTs (non-fungible tokens), I have been buying high-end art NFTs. I then have a bunch of the portfolio in the fund of hedge funds in Exponential Age Asset Management,” the former Goldman Sachs executive posited. “And I have 1% in stupid s**t like dogwifhat, Dogecoin and Bonk. Got all of those. But that’s 1%… just to be clear I’ve got like in all of meme coins and everything else, 1% of my portfolio. I am 80% Solana.”
Pal’s bullishness on SOL is warranted. Solana became hot again last year after payments giant Visa announced it would utilize the blockchain’s technology to speed up credit card payments. Then, there is the meme coin craze, which has taken crypto markets by storm. Solana has seen the launch of thousands of new meme coins, which have amassed billions of dollars in trading volume in recent months, helping the fifth-largest blockchain outshine rivals like Ethereum, Avalanche, and BNB Chain in areas such as user activity, growth, and adoption.
Regarding what pushed him to invest heavily in SOL, Pal explained:
“The chart that was a standout in 2022 was the Solana/Ethereum chart. And that was the chart that got me buying Solana and then going all in. Much like I went into Ethereum all in about September 2020. I just did it earlier in Solana.”
SOL has jumped by over 1,200% since its closing price of $9.85 in 2022. Ethereum (ETH), on the other hand, gained approximately 150% from its $1,200 closing price in 2022.
Notably, Solana’s success has come at a price. The popular blockchain has been plagued with severe congestion issues in recent months. However, after weeks of failed transactions, Solana developers finally rolled out the v1.17.31 mainnet update to address the network congestion.
The price of SOL was changing hands at $136.45 at publication time, down 1.7% on the day, as Bitcoin (BTC) dropped hard and fast. The largest and oldest crypto plunged to under $60,000 today before slightly rebounding to $61,253 as of press time.
