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Helius Labs CEO Mert Mumtaz is betting on Solana jumping 150% in the next five years, brushing off any short-term price action as just noise.
“I’m confident in saying that Solana will be a trillion-dollar asset and that it will go above $500. I’d be very surprised if Solana is not at $500 in five years,” Mert tells Hall of Flame.
“It seems to be a rare breed in crypto, but my time horizon is five to 10 years. I don’t really care about anything that happens underneath that,” he says.
Solana is trading at $200 at the time of publication, as per CoinMarketCap.
The Turkish-born, Canadian-raised and now Dubai-based crypto entrepreneur isn’t ruling out the possibility of Solana’s price soaring well beyond his conservative prediction. “In a world where XRP ranks as the third-largest asset, it seems anything is possible,” he laughs.
It’d be surprising if he weren’t super bullish on Solana, given that he’s the best-known SOL proponent on X and that Helius Labs is a developer platform built for Solana projects.
Mumtaz, who got his start in crypto as one of the first engineers hired at Coinbase’s Canada office, first gained attention on Crypto Twitter for defending Solana in its early days, calling out the know-it-all finance and English majors who didn’t get how the network worked.
“They would go on about how Solana has engineering flaws, and I’d be like, you don’t know engineering, let alone Solana’s engineering,” he laughs.
“They would make certain arguments about how the design is flawed, and I’d just say no, it is not; it does what it is supposed to do,” he adds.
How did Mert Mumtaz build his X following?
Mumtaz has 203,200 X followers but admits he isn’t “quite sure” why people follow him.
“I think certain people follow me because they want to learn more about Solana, and I talk about Solana quite frequently,” he says.
It’s been steady growth with no big spikes in followers — just consistent progress since he started his account in September 2020, he says.
“I’ve never really seen a surge; it has always been really consistent. I probably get more followers when Solana goes up in price,” he says.
Back when he only had a “very small” following of around 5,000, he would see “a lot of followers” jump on after a big account like crypto influencer Ansem tweeted about him.
But those days are over.
“When you get bigger, you require higher activation energy to get there.”
What type of content does Mert Mumtaz do?
Mumtaz uses his X account to talk about serious stuff — startup tips, crypto and marketing advice — but he’s always up for a bit of a laugh.
“I also shitpost a bit, I like having fun. Talking about Canada, being bald and making jokes,” he says. “As long as you are authentic and like having fun, I don’t think it is too hard.”
Despite his over-the-top love for Solana, he doesn’t go around following a bunch of Solana maxis — he says he already knows everything he needs to know about the network (though he has one exception…Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko).
He’s more into the hustle-focused business grinders. “I really follow startup advice from people and other founders just to get an idea of how they built their company and how they think,” he says.
He’s also a fan of Backpack founder Armani Ferrante’s content and appreciates the “nice data” Blockworks’ Dan Smith regularly shares.
His favorite account is Start-up Archive, which he says pulls together all the best advice from past startup founders.
Predictions from Mert Mumtaz?
Beyond Mumtaz’s $500 prediction for Solana over the next five years, he also thinks US crypto companies offering real utility will do much better under the Donald Trump administration.
“The past regulation has only harmed people building real-world assets or stablecoins because people who are just going to speculate and release shitters are just going to do that anyways,” he says.
Mumtaz, who’s also an angel investor, says he’s already getting “a lot of inbound” from stablecoin companies, payment rail firms and real-world asset startups.
“I think companies providing the option for paying for stuff in crypto is going to 10X.”
Ciaran Lyons
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