SOL: Real Vision CEO Says Solana Team Is ‘Unlocking Something Big’

On December 16, 2022, a former Goldman Sachs executive explained why he is bullish on Solana (SOL).

In a blog post published on June 29, 2022, Coinbase described Solana as follows:

“Solana is a decentralized computing platform that accepts SOL for payment. Solana’s goal is to improve blockchain scalability by combining proof of stake and so-called proof of history. As a result, Solana claims to be able to support 50,000 transactions per second while maintaining decentralization, and it is one of the largest proof of stake blockchains in terms of market capitalization.

“Solana aims to enable smart contracts to allow developers to build a wide range of decentralized finance (DeFi) apps, new crypto tokens, games, and more. When users stake their cryptocurrency, they make the asset’s underlying blockchain more secure and efficient. In exchange, they are rewarded with additional network assets, which are distributed as rewards.”

Raoul Pal, an ex-Goldman executive, co-managed the GLG Global Macro Fund in London for global asset management firm GLG Partners (now known as “Man GLG”) prior to founding macroeconomic and investment strategy research service Global Macro Investor (GMI) in 2005. Pal was previously with Goldman Sachs, where he co-managed the European hedge fund sales business in Equities and Equity Derivatives. He is currently the CEO of Real Vision, a finance and business video channel he co-founded in 2014.

According to a report by The Daily Hodl, on 16 December 2022, during Raoul’s Annual State of the Crypto Union Address, he had this to say about Solana: “I’m really interested in Solana because I think the team is exceptional in what they’re doing. They are constructing a consumer chain… There are many detractors, it’s down 95%, it got caught up in the whole FTX thing, but I think it’s clean now because they all had to sell, so now you’ve got this chain with retail adoption doing deals with Meta, Google, and all sorts of others.” They’ve also recently struck a deal with Discord, and I expect more from them in the future. I think they’ve figured out their niche; having a store in Manhattan selling Solana merchandise is fantastic, and who knows where the mobile phone will go? But I believe they’re on to something big.”

According to The Daily Hodl, Pal said about Solana during a “Ask Me Anything” session streamed on YouTube channel “Real Vision Crypto” last month: “I really like Solana and I understand that the chain breaks. I’m also aware that they’re working on it. I’m also aware that’s a no-no. One of the factors was that its ownership was concentrated due to FTX. They are now able to liquidate it, so you are removing one of the issues.” Solana, on the other hand, I believe is doing something very clever. What matters in cryptocurrency is the narrative. For example, consider the Bitcoin narrative and digital gold. Ethereum is the Web3 distributed Internet. So, where do these additional chains fit in? Solana, on the other hand, has and is constructing a narrative, which is the consumer chain…

“But the consumer Internet, these are the people who have done deals with META and Google. They have shops. They have clothing lines. They have a consumer-like quality to them. And I believe that consumer adoption, not of cryptocurrencies, but of NFTs [non-fungible tokens] and other digital assets, will skyrocket in the coming years… Solana reminds me of Ethereum in 2018, when it fell 97% and no one cared. And it was a fantastic bloody opportunity.”