After an impressive comeback in 2023, Solana started 2024 with ups and downs. Speculations related to increased ETF approvals in the crypto market last week affected cryptocurrencies, resulting in Solana’s price taking a hit, dropping to $95 in the last 24 hours.
Whales’ Movements in BTC and ETH
The spot Bitcoin ETF frenzy that began earlier in the week has taken the entire crypto world by storm. Solana could not escape this situation and felt the impact quite severely.
The decline in Solana’s price occurred in an environment of broader crypto selling pressure. According to Whale Alert, known for tracking whale transactions on the blockchain, whales sent millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum to central exchanges in the last 24 hours, raising questions.
These transfer activities by whales were interpreted as preparation for a potential sale, causing high volatility in prices and leading many altcoins to fall.
In the last 24 hours, Solana’s (SOL) price experienced a drop of over 7%, falling to $92, but later recovered, reducing the loss to under 5% and climbing to $95.25. The trading volume also saw a 10% decrease during the same 24-hour period, falling below $3 billion.
Solana Investors Incur Losses
Solana investors’ losses deepened following today’s decline. The altcoin had risen to $126 in recent days but then faced a sharp drop in price.
In the last seven days, it has lost over 7% in value. However, SOL’s performance from the beginning of the year to date was remarkable, gaining 600% in value, but it is still trading 64% below its all-time high of $259.96 from November 2021.
Ranked as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Solana’s market value has fallen by 6% in the last 24 hours to $41.5 billion.
What’s the Issue with Solana?
Solana, once dubbed the “Ethereum killer” for its faster and cheaper transactions compared to Ethereum, gained popularity.
Additionally, Ethereum’s previous Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism meant SOL had a lower environmental impact, which greatly influenced its desirability.
Despite these advantages, Solana has been facing significant outages and scaling issues in recent times, raising major concerns about the network.
