Etherscan Acquires Solana Block Explorer Solscan Amid Crypto Market Surge

Etherscan Expands Blockchain Data Services with Solscan Acquisition

Etherscan, the leading explorer for the Ethereum blockchain, is ushering in the new year with a strategic acquisition related to the Solana blockchain. On Jan. 3, Etherscan officially announced the acquisition of Solscan, a popular block explorer for the Solana ecosystem.

The Solscan block explorer has been providing services to over three million users each month since its 2021 launch. Its community on X (formerly Twitter) has grown to more than 23,000 subscribers. It offers features familiar to Etherscan users, including detailed address, token and transaction data, APIs, dashboards, and nonfungible token (NFT) metadata.

Through this “collaborative merging,” Etherscan aims to provide “credibly neutral and equitable access to blockchain data” across multiple networks. The firm plans to integrate additional features across different explorers and offer enhanced support.

Crypto Market Surges

Etherscan, a leading blockchain data platform, recently acquired Solscan, a crypto analytics firm, in a move to further their mission of making blockchain data more accessible and user-friendly. This acquisition comes amid a significant surge in the price of Solana (SOL), the native cryptocurrency of the Solana blockchain.

On December 22nd, Solana’s market capitalization briefly topped that of Binance Chain’s BNB (BNB), just a day after flipping the market value of XRP (XRP). The token has rallied 60% over the past 30 days, surging above $100 in late 2023 for the first time since 2022.

At the time of writing, the Solana token is trading at $110, down 3.5% over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko. SOL is now the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, valued at nearly $47 billion.

Etherscan CEO and co-founder Matthew Tan expressed his enthusiasm for the acquisition, stating that Solscan’s expertise in making blockchain data accessible and user-friendly aligns perfectly with Etherscan’s mission.

Some industry experts have been questioning whether SOL crypto could surpass Ethereum (ETH) one day. In late December, Solana even exceeded Ethereum in terms of daily decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volumes. Furthermore, Solana outpaced Ethereum in terms of global searches on Google, scoring 56 compared to Ethereum’s 50.