Solana's native token SOLUSD fails to maintain its bullish momentum after reaching the $134 level

SOL price is currently 57% down from its all-time high, partially due to a sharp decline in its DApps activity

Solana’s native token SOL failed to maintain its bullish momentum after reaching the $134 level on April 14, but an assortment of data points suggest that the altcoin’s rally is not over.

At the time of writing, SOL is trading hands at around $121, up 11% for the week and 57% from its all-time low, which was reached in December 2022. The token has pulled back slightly since hitting highs of $137 on April 14, and it appears to be struggling to break through the $134 resistance.

The third-largest cryptocurrency is also down 50% from its all-time high of over $272, which was hit in August 2021, at the peak of the bull market.

Solana DApps activity plummets by 90%

Data from DeFiLlama shows that Solana is currently the second-largest blockchain by total value locked (TVL), with $6.9 billion. This places it ahead of competitors such as Tron, Base, and Berachain.

For instance, Sanctum, a liquid staking application, saw a 30% increase in deposits over the seven days ending April 16. Similarly, Jito, a community platform, and Jupiter, a decentralized exchange, reported a 20% rise in TVL during the same period.

One could argue that Solana’s TVL roughly matches the Ethereum layer-2 ecosystem in deposits. However, this comparison overlooks Solana’s strong position in decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes.

For example, in the seven days ending April 16, trading activity on Solana DApps totaled $15.8 billion, exceeding the combined volume of Ethereum scaling solutions by more than 50% during the same period.

Solana reclaimed the top spot in DEX activity, surpassing Ethereum after a 16% gain over seven days. This was supported by a 44% increase in volume on Pump-fun and a 28% rise on Raydium. In contrast, volumes declined on the three largest Ethereum DApps—Uniswap, Fluid, and Curve Finance. A similar trend occurred on BNB Chain, where PancakeSwap, Four-Meme, and DODO saw reduced volumes compared to the previous week.

It would be unfair to measure Solana’s growth only by DEX performance, as other DApps handle much smaller volumes. For example, Ondo Finance tokenized a total of $250 million worth of assets on the Solana network.

Meanwhile, Exponent, a yield farm protocol, doubled its TVL over the past 30 days. Similarly, the yield aggregator platform Synatra experienced a 43% jump in TVL during the past week.

Synatra DApp screenshot. Source: Cointelegraph

Solana ETFs to arrive in 2025

Analysts are confident that a Solana spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) will be approved in the United States in 2025. However, expectations for significant inflows are limited due to a general lack of interest from institutional investors and the recent poor performance of similar Ethereum ETF instruments.

If the spot ETF is approved, it could strengthen Solana’s presence—especially if the US government’s Digital Asset Stockpile plans come to fruition.

Investors are eagerly awaiting the full audit of US federal agencies’ crypto holdings, which was initially expected by April 7. However, after missing this deadline, some journalists suggest that the executive order signed on March 7 did not require the findings to be made public.

Regardless of whether SOL appears on that list, there are currently no plans from the government to acquire cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin.

Currently, there are few catalysts to justify a rally to $180, a level last seen 45 days ago on March 2. Without external factors causing a large influx of new participants into the crypto ecosystem, the increase in TVL and DEX market share alone is unlikely to push SOL’s price to outperform the broader market.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

The post Solana price to rise on ETF approval and US agency Bitcoin purchase plans appeared first on Cointelegraph.

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