Bitcoin vs Solana Over the Last 5 Years: Which Outperformed?

By Sam Daodu Published May 28, 2:41PM EDT

Quick Read

Solana returned ~95% from May 2021 to May 2026 versus Bitcoin's 46%, but required surviving a 97% drawdown that most retail investors couldn't endure.
Bitcoin gained 121% in 2024 after spot ETF approvals drove institutional money in at scale, pushing BTC above $126,000 before pulling back to around $75,860.
The April 2028 Bitcoin halving could lift both assets, with Solana historically rallying harder than Bitcoin and its staking yield adding extra appeal when interest rates fall.
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Bitcoin vs Solana Over the Last 5 Years: Which Outperformed? — © Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock.com

Over the last five years, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) have been two of the most talked-about assets in crypto. But talking about them is very different from understanding what they’ve actually delivered. One is the most institutionally held asset in the market, while the other is a high-performance blockchain known for fast, cheap transactions.

Measured from May 2021 to May 2026, the comparison between the two cryptocurrencies shows something a lot of investors still misread. If you are trying to work out where the next opportunity lies, this is a good place to start.

Bitcoin’s Price Performance Over the Last 5 Years

Crypto currency bitcoin and ethereum market on tablet with stock graph

Bitcoin’s five-year run was not a straight line. BTC traded below $10,000 during the 2020 COVID crash, started 2022 near $47,000, and fell to $16,547 by the year’s end, marking a 64% drawdown driven by Federal Reserve rate hikes and the FTX collapse.

Afterwards, Bitcoin entered a recovery phase. BTC closed 2023 around $42,255 and gained 121% in 2024 after spot Bitcoin ETF approvals in January, which was the year institutional money arrived at scale. By late 2025, Bitcoin had surged above $126,000 before pulling back again in 2026.

What you need to understand about Bitcoin’s five-year run is that although the drawdowns were brutal, every single recovery led to a higher price. This is exactly what makes the current price of around $75,860 worth paying attention to.

How Solana (SOL) Has Performed Over the Last 5 Years

Man holding a golden Solana coin with the financial stock market graph in the background. Cryptocurrency coin. Financial market.

Solana had a mazzy five-year run that many investors wish they had caught earlier. The token launched near $0.50 in 2020 and hit an all-time high of $294.33 in January 2025, a return of more than 130,000% from launch to peak.

The 2021 bull run, driven by NFT launches and DeFi adoption, pushed the Solana price up more than 11,000% in a single year. Then came 2022, with the FTX collapse, which hit Solana harder than almost any other major asset. SOL bottomed near $8.13 in December 2022, a 97% drawdown from its 2021 peak that wiped out most investors who couldn’t bear the pain.

Solana closed 2023 near $103, a gain of roughly 997% for the year, and closed 2024 near $190, keeping its on-chain activity ahead of every competing chain for ten straight months. Today the Solana price trades around $82.

Which Delivered More For Investors?

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On a straight five-year measure, May 2021 to today, Solana won, but not by the margin its early history suggests. Bitcoin returned roughly 46% over the period while Solana returned about 95%, nearly double. By May 2021, Solana had already run up most of its early gains, so the five-year window starts near a high rather than at the bottom.

Solana’s life-changing returns went to investors who bought in early 2021 or during the 2022 lows, not to anyone who bought at the May 2021 peak and held. And capturing Solana’s price explosion over this window meant surviving a 97% drawdown that most retail investors simply could not.

Solana outran Bitcoin over the past five years for a few reasons: it started from a much smaller market cap with more room to run, it was revalued as a high-throughput smart contract platform rather than digital gold, it expanded faster in bull cycles because of higher volatility, and falling interest rates made its staking yield more appealing than Bitcoin’s non-yielding structure.

Bitcoin’s case rests on reliability rather than raw returns. Its market dominance held around 52% through 2024 before easing to roughly 48.9% in 2025, and it has survived every bear market without a single year of genuine doubt about whether the network would still exist.

Solana can’t say the same. The FTX collapse in 2022 genuinely threatened the chain’s survival, and that risk premium never fully disappeared.

What Next For Bitcoin And Solana?

The next Bitcoin halving is scheduled for April 2028, and history says it pays to watch the cycle well before it arrives. Solana’s price has tracked Bitcoin’s four-year halving cycle closely, with both the 2021 and 2024 bull runs landing in post-halving altcoin seasons. The 2028 cycle could lift both cryptocurrencies, though Solana typically rallies higher than BTC off the same catalyst.

Yield is the other big difference. Solana pays you to stake it, while Bitcoin doesn’t, and that matters more the lower interest rates go. We think both assets are worth buying, however, they have different roles and at different sizes.

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About the Author Sam Daodu →

Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst who's spent nearly a decade making blockchain understandable—no easy task when most whitepapers read like fever dreams. He writes for 24/7 Wall St., covering Bitcoin, altcoins, and crypto market analysis for investors. Before crypto, he was a tech writer (back when explaining "the cloud" was peak innovation). Since 2018, he's written for CoinTelegraph, Yahoo Finance, The Block, Cryptonews, Zypto, Rain, and more—basically anywhere people want crypto news without the headache. Sam runs MacLabs Marketing, a content agency for crypto brands tired of sounding like AI wrote their website. He also publishes free crypto education on his site for Web3 enthusiasts who think "gas fees" is a typo. When he's not writing or staring at charts, Sam's either: - Watching anime (currently convinced One Piece has better tokenomics than most altcoins) - At the gym sculpting himself into a Greek god - Listening to the music your mum warned you only bad boys listen to Connect: LinkedIn | Email | MacLabs Marketing