Crypto
Will Solana (SOL) Flip ETH? Multicoin Bets, Ethereum Answers
Multicoin's Kyle Samani says Solana will flip Ethereum this cycle. The counterargument points to Ethereum's $54B DeFi base and $146B in stablecoins.
BLOCKINSIDERLoadingMulticoin's Kyle Samani says Solana will flip Ethereum this cycle. The counterargument points to Ethereum's $54B DeFi base and $146B in stablecoins.
Every cycle produces a chain that is supposed to end Ethereum. Most fade. Solana has lasted longer than most, and this week the "Ethereum killer" argument came back with a name attached to it.
Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, said in a podcast interview published on 21 September 2026 that Solana will pass Ethereum in market value during this market cycle. Multicoin led part of Solana's early funding in 2018, making Samani one of the network's longest-standing backers.
The response has been just as pointed. Ethereum supporters argue that the flip case measures the wrong thing, and that the network's real advantage sits in places Solana has not yet reached.
Samani's thesis rests on where builders go next. Crypto companies will increasingly choose Solana because it is easier to use and more powerful, he argued, adding that Ethereum's status as the default smart contract network could erode as a result.
"Today, no one really uses Ethereum," Samani said in the interview. He also described himself as bearish on Ethereum's ability to turn network activity into value for ETH holders.
His own history runs through both chains. Samani has said he came into crypto through Ethereum in 2016, then lost confidence in its approach to scaling before backing Solana two years later.
Some of the activity data supports the direction of his argument. Solana generated about $23 million in chain fees over the past 30 days, ahead of Ethereum's roughly $12.6 million over the same period, according to DefiLlama. Solana also recently passed the New York Stock Exchange on weekly trade count.
The counterargument, set out by Ethereum-focused analysts responding to Samani, does not dispute Solana's speed or activity. It disputes what those numbers measure.
Five advantages come up repeatedly in that case:
The last two points cut directly at how the comparison is framed. If layer-2 activity counts as Ethereum activity, then measuring the base layer's fees alone understates it. The Solana vs Ethereum explainer by BlockInsider sets out how the two architectures differ.
That is where the two sides firmly disagree. As per the counterargument, the question is not which chain has more activity, but which network captures the most economic value from the whole crypto stack.
Samani's answer is that usage migrates first and value follows. The opposing view is that Ethereum's role as crypto's deepest financial settlement layer is the harder thing to replace, and that liquidity, stablecoins, and institutional plumbing are stickier than user counts.
Notably, Samani did not dispute that Ethereum's position rests on stablecoins and collateral-backed borrowing. He argued that those foundations do not translate into value for the token itself.
Whatever the thesis, the arithmetic is demanding. ETH traded at $2,724.95 on 22 September 2026, with a market capitalization of about $332.6 billion, according to CoinGecko. SOL traded at $117.41 the same day.
Ethereum's market value is currently around five times Solana's. Closing that gap would require either a very large move in SOL, a sustained fall in ETH, or both.
Samani gave no timeline and no target price, describing the flip only as something he expects within this cycle. His position is an investment thesis from an early Solana backer, not a settled market outcome.
Both networks have upgrades ahead that bear on the question: Ethereum's continued work on cross-layer-2 interoperability, and Solana's Firedancer validator client. Whether the debate resolves on activity or on settlement depth is, for now, still open.
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