Cryptocurrency Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) is up over 500% year-to-date in 2023, outpacing the returns of leading cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH). Interest in Solana is increasing from investors around the world.

Here’s a look back at a key moment in Solana and cryptocurrency history, which could have provided an investment opportunity for some.

What Happened: Interest in Solana has exploded thanks to many items, including airdrops like Jito (CRYPTO: JTO), to people who participated in a Solana-based liquid staking protocol.

The launch of Solana-based meme coins like Bonk (CRYPTO: BONK) and Dogwifhat (CRYPTO: WIF) have also led to more interest in Solana and Solana non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Launched in 2020, Solana is a layer-1 blockchain designed to help facilitate smart contracts and create new decentralized applications. The cryptocurrency can process many transactions per second and has a low transaction cost.

Over the years, Solana has gained interest and seen use cases thanks to its position in the worlds of non-fungible tokens and blockchain gaming.

Now the sixth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Solana has partnered with major financial company Visa Inc (NYSE:V) to help with cross-border payments. E-commerce company Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) also announced the integration of Solana as a payment option on the company’s shopping platforms.

The rebound of Solana in 2023 comes after a rough 2022 that saw the bankruptcy of several cryptocurrency platforms, including FTX. Solana was also volatile around the time of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest and FTX’s struggles. The coin was the company’s former top holding.

Bankman-Fried previously had one of the best-timed callouts of Solana in the coin’s history.

Twitter user @coinmamba called out Bankman-Fried on whether he said Solana was overvalued. Bankman-Fried denied saying the coin was overvalued. He instead offered multiple bets with Twitter users on the coin going up in value.

After a few tweets back and forth betting on the price of SOL at $2, $2.05, $2.38 and $3, Bankman-Fried finally had enough and offered to buy every single SOL that the user owned for $3.

“I’ll buy as much SOL as you have, right now, at $3. Sell me all you want. Then go f*** off,” Bankman-Fried said.

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If You Invested $1,000 in Solana: It’s not clear if Bankman-Fried ended up buying Solana for $3 at the time. But investors who bought at the time of his tweet ended up seeing a great return.

Solana traded between $2.94 and $3.66 on Jan. 9, 2021, the date of the tweet from Bankman-Fried.

A $1,000 investment in Solana based on the day’s high could have purchased 273.22 SOL.

Today, the $1,000 investment would be worth $20,114.46. This represents a potential return of 1,911.4% over the last nearly two years.

Time will tell if Solana can maintain momentum and return to all-time highs of $260.06 set in November 2021. One crypto trader predicts the price of Solana will hit $360 in 2025.

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