Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, has predicted that Solana’s market capitalization will surpass Ethereum’s during the current market cycle, arguing that Ethereum lacks meaningful usage outside stablecoins.
“Today, no one really uses Ethereum,” Samani said. He added that Ethereum is “a $400 billion to $300 billion asset that has questionable value accrual, if any, and it’s not growing at all.”
For SOL to flip ETH by market cap, Solana would need to increase roughly five-fold. SOL currently trades at a $58 billion market capitalization, while Ether sits at $293 billion. Over the past month, both assets have moved in lockstep: SOL gained 34% and ETH rose 30%. Over the past year, SOL declined 59% and ETH fell 45%.
Samani’s bullish Solana thesis centers on network functionality and adoption by crypto companies. “They’ll all switch their default over to Solana because it’s the most functional network for all of them and it’s just easier to consolidate their operations around Solana to the extent that they can,” he said.
Fee Metrics and Network Activity
Solana has already surpassed Ethereum in fee generation despite holding a fraction of its market cap. Over the past 30 days, Solana generated $23 million in fees compared to Ethereum’s $12.6 million. In a single day, Solana issued a record 263,000 tokens.
Samani’s Crypto Evolution
Samani discovered permissionless finance and smart contracts through Ethereum in 2016, calling it his entry into crypto. His faith in Ethereum eroded after he became dissatisfied with how Ethereum developers addressed scaling challenges.
Samani founded Multicoin Capital in May 2017 and identified Solana shortly after. Multicoin led some of Solana’s earliest investment rounds in 2018. The firm managed $5.9 billion in assets under management as of May 2025.
In February 2026, Samani stepped down as managing partner of Multicoin Capital after a decade, describing it as a “bittersweet moment.” In a deleted X post that month, he wrote: “I once believed in the web3 vision. dapps. I don’t anymore. Crypto is just fundamentally not as interesting as many crypto enthusiasts wanted. Myself included.”
Three months later, in September 2026, Samani joined the US board of directors at Backpack, a crypto trading platform. Prior to his crypto career, Samani co-founded and served as CEO of Pristine, a healthcare IT company.
