Why Is Solana Falling Harder Than Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP This Week?

Solana is underperforming its blue chip counterparts—like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP—because it’s primed to take a bigger hit when investors deleverage and take profits, analysts told Decrypt.

“According to CoinGlass data, over the past 24 hours, market-wide liquidations exceeded $290 million, with highly leveraged and less liquid assets seeing sharper drawdowns—Solana being a prime example,” said Dean Chen, an analyst at crypto exchange Bitunix.

Solana derivatives contracts have accounted for $31.6 million worth of the forced selling in the past day, compared to $68.5 million for Ethereum and $52.2 million for Bitcoin liquidations. At the time of writing, Solana is trading for $213 after having dropped roughly 3% in the past day and more than 9% over the last week, according to crypto price aggregator CoinGecko.

Chen added that last week’s bullish Solana treasury news from Forward Industries and DeFi Development Corp. was already priced in because the companies that bought had already announced their plans to do so.

Forward, which trades on the NasdaqCM under the FORD ticker, announced its $1.65 billion raise and intent to buy Solana a few days before the SOL was acquired. And DeFi Development, which trades on the NasdaqCM under the DFDV ticker, has been buying Solana since April.

“Once the announcements became official, the market reacted with a classic ‘buy the rumor, sell the news’ dynamic, prompting speculative holders to exit and accelerating the correction,” he said.

The SOL pullback has made users on Myriad, a prediction market owned by Decrypt’s parent company DASTAN, doubt whether the coin will see a new all-time high before the end of the year. As of this writing, predictors see even 50-50 odds that Solana will rise above the current record of $293.31 in 2025—but predictors were bullish earlier this week, giving a nearly 65% chance of it happening as of Sunday.

There are other factors at play, said Gordon Grant, portfolio manager and head of derivatives at crypto index fund manager Bitwise, He told Decrypt the large FTX estate distribution coming up at the end of the month “threw cold water on the market.”

“In terms of short-term positioning, the 15% pullback from $250 to $210 does not feel extreme given that SOL had rallied over 50% from its early August levels,” he said.

The FTX Recovery Trust said late last week that it would begin distributing another $1.6 billion worth of funds to creditors at the end of the month.