PRO | Is Solana about to be dethroned? 👑

GM! Welcome to Milk Road PRO – the newsletter that collects crypto market insights, like a magpie collects shiny objects.

Solana holders…how often are you pinching yourselves?

It’s wild to think back to the start of 2023, when you could pick up $SOL for ~$10 per token.

Meanwhile in 2024, its year-to-date (YTD) range is sitting anywhere between $78-$209! 🤯 

There are very few assets that have been able to match Solana’s impressive performance over the last 12 months – and even though prices and sentiment cooled off after the March highs, it continues to deliver outstanding results.

Check out the chart below. 👇

As early as last September, $SOL was trading around $18. Now, it's around $148—a 747% increase. Not too bad, huh?

So what’s the key to $SOL’s success? 🤔 

It’s pretty simple: Solana delivers what people want—a fast blockchain with cheap transactions. 

Let’s take a step back to 2021. Back then, we saw the rise of so-called "$ETH-killers" like Solana, Avalanche, and Fantom – all promising fast and low-cost transactions. 

Ethereum was the dominant leader in smart contract blockchains, boasting the highest TVL, the largest developer community, the most users, and a vast ecosystem of apps. 

At that time, no other blockchain came close.

However, other Layer 1s saw an opportunity and attempted to challenge $ETH’s supremacy. For a while, it seemed like Solana might succeed, especially when you consider $SOL's performance against $ETH.

See the chart below. 

$SOL surged by an incredible +2,078% against $ETH, not just USD. That’s an outstanding performance!

But here’s the reality—many of these so-called $ETH killers once saw impressive gains against $ETH, but most are now nearing their all-time lows in comparison. 📉 

Expecting them to hit new highs against $ETH is wishful thinking. The truth is, challenging $ETH isn’t as easy as many make it out to be.

✅ Solana, however, is the exception. 

While most $ETH killers have struggled, Solana not only survived but thrived, filling a crucial gap in the market, by offering a fast and affordable blockchain. 

With its recent success, measured not just by price but across various key metrics, we could be on the verge of seeing a similar story unfold.

❓Now, it’s Solana’s turn to face its own challengers, like Aptos and SUI, which have launched blockchains with more efficient and secure programming languages.

The real question is: Can any of these new "$SOL killers" replicate Solana’s explosive rise from its first cycle, and give $SOL a run for its money? 

The stakes are high, and the race is on.

So today, let’s dive into the new Solana contenders, SUI and Aptos, and see how they stack up in the fight against Solana.

 THE ORIGIN STORY OF SUI AND APTOS

In June 2019, Facebook (now Meta) announced plans to create a permissioned blockchain and digital wallet for a global payment network. 

To achieve this, Meta led the Diem Association (formerly Libra Association) to build the blockchain, while its subsidiary, Novi Finance (formerly Calibra), was tasked with developing the digital wallet.

However, neither project fully materialized. Regulatory challenges forced Diem to shut down and sell its assets in January 2022. 💀

Later that year, Meta quietly ended the Novi project. Before their closure, several project leaders acknowledged that Meta's vision for a global payment network was likely doomed.

Despite these setbacks, the research from Diem and Novi led to the creation of two new blockchains: Aptos and SUI. 

Aptos continues the legacy of Diem by advancing its technology, while Mysten Labs, founded by former Novi leaders, created something entirely new with SUI.

Today, we’ll introduce you to both projects, compare them against each other, and then see how they measure up against Solana in the end. 🏁

P.S. - We’re hosting a PRO AMA next week — scroll to the bottom for more info. 👀

TEAMS

SUI

Mysten Labs, the team behind $SUI, was founded in 2021 by former Novi leads Evan Cheng, Adeniyi Abiodun, Sam Blackshear, George Danezis, and Kostas Chalkias. 

These founders bring deep expertise in software compilers, programming safety, distributed systems, cryptography, and cloud computing – with backgrounds at companies like Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, R3, and Facebook. 

Notably, co-founder Evan Cheng, a key figure in the development of SUI, received the ACM Software System Award for his work on LLVM, a technology widely used in Apple and Google devices.

APTOS

Aptos Labs was founded in December 2021 and launched in February 2022. 

It was co-founded by Mo Shaikh, former Head of Strategic Partnerships at Novi, and Avery Ching, Novi’s Principal Software Engineer with a background in supercomputing. 

Both founders brought significant experience from the blockchain and tech industries, with Shaikh previously leading strategy at Consensys and founding the blockchain-based real estate platform Meridio. 

The rest of the founding team included PhDs, researchers, engineers, and designers, many of whom had also worked on Diem or Novi.

💡 The founders of both projects share a common history at Facebook (Meta), and they seem to have an excellent founder-market fit.

This term refers to when a team is uniquely positioned to build something because they possess specialized experience and knowledge that few others have.

FUNDING

SUI

In December 2021, Mysten Labs raised $36M in a Series A round led by a16z, with participation from Redpoint, Lightspeed, Coinbase Ventures, and others. 

In September 2022, Mysten raised $300M in a Series B round at a valuation of over $2 billion, led by FTX Ventures with contributions from a16z, Jump Crypto, Binance Labs, and others.

✍️  SUI has raised over $330M in funding, with a valuation exceeding $2 billion.

APTOS

In March 2022, Aptos Labs raised $200M, launching its public devnet and open-source codebase. 

This funding round, led by a16z, included investors like Multicoin Capital, ParaFi Capital, and Coinbase Ventures. 

In July 2022, Aptos secured an additional $150M, raising its valuation to $2 billion. 

This round was led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with FTX's investments now under bankruptcy control. 

Additional investments from Binance Labs and Dragonfly Capital brought Aptos' total funding to around $400M.

✍️ Aptos has successfully raised $400M, achieving a valuation of over $2 billion.

💡 Both projects have raised similar amounts of funding and share comparable valuations.

TOKENOMICS