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SOL continues to outperform ETH year-to-date as the cryptocurrency begins 2025 with an 8% jump, with investors continuing to eye a potential Solana ETF.
As of January 2, 2025, Solana (Sol) is trading at $205.64, registering a 8.48% increase in the last 24 hours. This rise comes after a short consolidation phase, reflecting renewed investor confidence and optimism.
Sol The intraday high was $205.64 and low was $187.82, indicating a strong recovery driven by high demand and favorable market sentiment regarding the proposed Solana exchange-traded fund.
Open interest in SOL futures rose to $3.42 billion, supported by increased investor participation.
Perpetual contracts dominate the scene with $3.4 billion in open interest, while futures stand at $15.8 million.
Over the past 24 hours, perpetual contracts grew by 10.67%, and futures saw a significant increase of 85.59%, contributing to an overall increase of 10.87% in total open interest. Among cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance leads with $1.7 billion in open interest, followed by Bybit with $1.1 billion and OKX with $520.5 million.
On Binance, SOL price rose 6.32% over the past 24 hours and recorded a gain of 6.96% over the past seven days. Coinbase and Kraken posted similar 24-hour increases of 6.34% and 6.28%, respectively. Binance also leads in trading volume, with 56.1K SOL/ETH pairs traded in the last day, while Coinbase and Kraken follow with 5.2K and 4.6K respectively.
The sharp increase in SOL price and open interest highlights the growing optimism among investors.
85.59% rise in open interest for Sol Futures indicate that a growing number of traders are betting on SOL price movements. Open interest is often associated with strong market activity and confidence, indicating that the market is anticipating further upside for SOL. The dominance of perpetual contracts reflects that traders actively profit from SOL price fluctuations through short-term strategies.
This trend underscores the interplay between rising speculative activity and fundamental interest, both of which are driving SOL’s strong performance.
Awat, a trader and angel investor at APG Capital, tweeted a compelling visual representation of SOL’s current market movements.
SOL’s recent performance reflects growing investor confidence, with strong support around $0.002156 in the SOL/BTC pair and a steady consolidation phase indicating stability against BTC.
The breakout in the SOL/ETH pair signals the return of Solana as an attractive investment amid slower momentum for ETH, demonstrating its competitiveness in the ecosystem.
SOL and ETH differ in their technical designs, with SOL using a unique proof of date combined with proof of stake for faster transactions, while Ethereum runs on proof of stake for scalability. SOL’s transaction fees are consistently low, around $0.00025, compared to ETH’s volatile gas fees.
ETH has a larger, well-established community and ecosystem, while SOL, although newer, is growing rapidly due to its speed and lower costs, attracting developers in DeFi, NFTs, and gaming. These differences affect the user experience and use cases for each blockchain.
In addition, speculation about the approval of the SOL ETF by July 31, 2025, has gained momentum. Platforms like Polymarket have seen increasing odds of such approval, with current odds standing at around 65%, compared to 50% earlier this month.
The combined effects of whale accumulation, increased adoption, and higher open interest positions in SOL collectively contributed to the rally. However, potential risks remain, such as network stability issues and regulatory scrutiny, which could impact market confidence.
