SOL continues to outperform ETH year-to-date as the cryptocurrency is set to rise 8% in 2025 and investors continue to eye the potential Solana ETF.
As of January 2, 2025, Solana (SOL) is trading at $205.64, up 8.48% in the last 24 hours. This surge follows a brief consolidation phase, reflecting renewed investor confidence and optimism.
SOL hit an intraday high of $205.64 and low of $187.82, signaling a strong recovery driven by rising demand and favorable market sentiment for the proposed Solana ETF.
Open interest in SOL futures contracts rose to $3.42 billion, helped by increased investor participation.
The market is dominated by perpetual contracts with $3.4 billion in open interest, while futures contracts account for $15.8 million.
Over the past 24 hours, the perpetual contract has risen by 10.67% and the futures contract has risen significantly by 85.59%, contributing to an overall increase of 10.87% in total open interest. Among cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance leads the way with open interest of $1.7 billion, followed by Bybit with $1.1 billion and OKX with $520.5 million.
On Binance, the price of SOL has increased by 6.32% in the last 24 hours and recorded a gain of 6.96% in the last seven days. Coinbase and Kraken reported similar 24-hour gains of 6.34% and 6.28%, respectively. Binance also leads in trading volume with 56.1K SOL/ETH pairs traded in the last day, followed by Coinbase and Kraken with 5.2K and 4.6K respectively.
The sharp rise in SOL prices and open interest highlight growing optimism among investors.
The 85.59% increase in open interest in SOL futures contracts suggests that an increasing number of traders are betting on SOL price movements. Open interest is often associated with strong market activity and confidence, indicating that the market expects SOL to rise further. The predominance of perpetual contracts reflects that traders are actively capitalizing on SOL price volatility through short-term strategies.
This trend highlights the interaction between increased speculative activity and fundamental interest that drive strong SOL performance.
Avat, a trader and angel investor at APG Capital, tweeted a compelling visual representation of the current SOL market movements.
$SOL: looks very convincing:
– strong rate below 200,
– low level compared to BTC,
– rebound against ETH
– bullish openings?bidding 195-205#liquidate_kwaker_oats pic.twitter.com/Hu3sa5nxu6
— Avawat (@Awawat_Trades) January 2, 2025
SOL’s recent performance reflects growing investor confidence, with strong support around $0.002156 in SOL/BTC and a sustained consolidation phase signaling stability against BTC.
The breakout of the SOL/ETH pair indicates the resurgence of Solana as an attractive investment amid the slowdown in ETH growth, demonstrating its competitiveness in the ecosystem.
SOL and ETH differ in technical design: SOL uses a unique Proof of History combined with Proof of Stake for faster transactions, while Ethereum uses Proof of Stake for scalability. SOL transaction fees are consistently low, around $0.00025, compared to ETH’s fluctuating gas fees.
ETH has a larger, well-established community and ecosystem, while SOL, although newer, is growing rapidly due to its speed and low cost, attracting developers in the DeFi, NFT and gaming fields. These differences impact the user experience and use cases of each blockchain.
In addition, rumors about the approval of the SOL ETF by July 31, 2025 are gaining momentum. On platforms like Polymarket, the odds of such approval are rising, with the current probability standing at around 65%, up from 50% earlier this month.
The combined effect of whale accumulation, growing adoption and increasing open interest positions in SOL have combined to fuel this growth. However, potential risks remain, such as network stability issues and regulatory scrutiny, which could impact market confidence.
