Important takeouts:
Solana’s Dex volume surpassed Ethereum, but overall activity is well below the level seen in January.
The domination of hyperglycemia in a permanent future trading undermines investors’ trust in Solana’s long-term lead.
Solana’s native token sol (SOL) fell 15% after failing to regain the $168 level on June 12th.
However, recently Solana regained her second position in a decentralized exchange (DEX) volume, raising questions among traders about the possibility that SOL could regain the $180 level in the short term.
Dex’s activity at Solana reached $64.1 billion in 30 days, surpassing Ethereum’s $61.4 billion, according to data from Defillama. BNB Chain remained at the top position at $159.6 billion over the same period, but Solana gained market share throughout June.
Key contributors to this growth include Pump.Fun, which has a volume of $19.1 billion for Raidium, followed by $14.2 billion and ORCA, which has a $13.9 billion. Still, overall DEX activity in Solana is 91% below the level in January.
The appeal of the Memecoin sector continues to fade, with most tokens losing more than 25% in the last 16 days. Giga reduced both Popcat by 42%, Popcat by 35%, Fartcoin and PNUT by 31%, while Bonk and WIF by 25%, respectively. These losses undermine Solana’s enthusiasm for increasing DEX market share.
Another concern for Sol Investors is the rise in lipids, which has emerged as the dominant blockchain for permanent trading. This shift reduced interest in both Solana and BNB chain Ethereum Layer-2 and Standalone Distributed Applications (DAPP).
Hyperliquid’s 30-day trading volume was 84% higher than the total of the five biggest competitors, according to Defillama. More importantly, its success has encouraged speculation that other projects could launch their own independent blockchains.
This fear undermined the traders’ belief that Solana could become the dominant player. That loss of trust can be seen in the Derivatives market. There, the demand for SOL’s leveraged advantages is declining.
In neutral markets, permanent futures typically show an annual funding rate of 5%-12% in long positions. When this rate goes negative, it shows bearish feelings as the shorts are paying to keep the deal. Over the past 30 days, derivative data has not shown sustained optimism about SOL.
SOL’s biggest potential catalyst maintains the possibility of approval of the Solana Spot Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is expected to be decided in October. Until then, the Bulls have relied on the technical strength of their network to support price recovery.
Related: US Crypto ETF Approved Odds Surge ‘90% or More’ – Bloomberg Analyst
Drift Protocol’s Davo pointed out that Solana’s robust basic layer supports “asset availability.” This means that tokens can be used natively as collateral. He also emphasized that there is no “off-chain matching engine” that helps protect DEX users from transaction sorting or prioritizing.
Despite the association between Memecoins and Token launches, there are wider use cases in the Solana ecosystem. Also, high lipids could be outliers, but other startup blockchains such as Bellachin were unable to maintain meaningful deposition levels. Given Solana’s low prices and high scalability, a return to the $180 mark could occur even before the October ETF decision.
