Trading in Spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs continues unabated since last week, despite the market’s short-term outlook disappointing investors’ expectations after an initial surge. According to 21milyon.com, the global crypto market experienced a 1.1% decline over the week, and Bitcoin’s market volume fell below $850 billion. Solana (SOL), the star of the last quarter of 2023, saw a 5% decrease since the beginning of 2024.
Despite the year-to-date decline, SOL has seen a resurgence in the last 24 hours, with a more than 4% increase, making it the fifth-largest asset by market cap. SOL’s 24-hour trading volume also rose by approximately 25%, indicating a significant increase in demand for the coin.
The recent price increase may be linked to Solana’s announcement of the launch of its second smartphone after Saga, with the new phone expected to be cheaper and deliveries anticipated in the first half of 2025. Solana may aim to replicate the impact seen with Saga mobile sales supported by the BONK token airdrop at the end of last year.
BONK, like SOL, completed 2023 as one of the year’s top earners with an unrealistic 944% price increase, spurred by the 30 million BONK airdrop with each Saga device. Interestingly, the value of the airdropped BONK tokens exceeded the cost of the phone. Alongside SOL’s price rise, BONK also responded to the announcement with a 1.33% increase in the last 24 hours.
Despite SOL’s departure from its spectacular performance at the end of last year and its average appearance in the spot market recently, inflow of hot money into the derivatives market continued, with Open Interest (OI) increasing by 8% over the week. On Binance, the leading exchange by volume, the Funding Rate remained positive, indicating the dominance of traders leaning towards long positions. Solana’s recovery from a starting point of $10 in 2023 to over $100 after the FTX incident has been one of the most significant comebacks in crypto history, providing relief to investors.