Solana futures data shows bulls are panicking: Can the $80 SOL hold?

Important points:

• A 75% drop in futures open interest indicates traders are heading for the exits rather than starting new bets, and SOL is struggling to sustain $80.

• Solana still relies heavily on retail and memecoin activity, while Ethereum maintains its lead in high-value decentralized finance.

Solana’s native token, SOL (SOL), has hit a wall and failed to rise above $89 repeatedly over the past two weeks. This lackluster price action comes after a mid-January rejection at the $145 level and a February 6 crash that saw the price plummet to $67.60. Demand for bullish leverage has essentially evaporated as traders brace for more pain.

Those betting on SOL are currently paying 20% ​​per year just to keep their short position open, which is a rare and aggressive move. The fact that funding rates have remained negative for more than a week shows that the bears have strong beliefs. In contrast, ETH’s annualized funding rate remained at 1% on Wednesday. This is below the usual neutral mark of 6%, but far from the lopsided levels seen in SOL.

Dissatisfaction is growing as SOL has underperformed other crypto markets by 11% over the past 30 days.

Although SOL remains one of the top seven cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, its 67% decline from its peak of $253 in September 2025 has left a mark on both on-chain activity and derivatives. In fact, open interest in SOL futures is down 75% from its high of $13.5 billion just five months ago.

Lower SOL prices reduce incentives and inhibit long-term holding

This price slump is also hurting decentralized applications (dApps) built on top of Solana. From staking and decentralized exchanges to Launchpad and lending platforms, revenues are declining across the board. Investors are starting to worry about a “death spiral” as falling prices lead to fewer incentives and it becomes harder for people to justify holding SOL for the long term.

Weekly dApps revenue at Solana fell to $22.8 million, the lowest level since October 2024. Interestingly, meme coin launchpad Pump generated $9.1 million in revenue in its seven-day period, accounting for 40% of the total network. In comparison, weekly revenue for DApps on Ethereum totaled $16 million, an increase of 2% month-over-month.

Related: Pump.fun rolls out cashback for traders in line with memecoin model

Unlike Solana, the most profitable DApps on Ethereum are Sky, Flashbots, and Aave, which are major infrastructure players in decentralized finance. Fundamentally, Solana relies heavily on retail onboarding and the memecoin sector, while Ethereum has a lead in Total Value Lock (TVL) and use cases that require a high degree of decentralization.

This weak institutional demand is seen in the SOL Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). Solana’s high trading volume and second place position on TVL were not enough to convince traditional investors to buy the SOL ETF offered by Bitwise, Fidelity, Grayscale, 21Shares, CoinShares, and REX-Osprey.

Although related, Solana’s $2.1 billion in ETF assets under management is still 86% behind Ethereum’s $15.8 billion. Many investors have lost confidence that demand for Solana DApps will skyrocket in the near future, which is likely a side effect of the massive hype surrounding Memecoin and Launchpad.

For SOL to regain bullish momentum, it will likely need a boost from sectors such as artificial intelligence infrastructure and prediction markets. These fields are promising, but competition is fierce.

For now, vulnerabilities in SOL derivatives and Solana on-chain metrics are warning signs. Any further disappointment could trigger further price declines and put the already volatile $78 support level at serious risk.