The sell-off of Solana (SOL) appears far from over as large-scale investors continue to offload their holdings amid a market downtrend. The current turbulence in the crypto space seems to have exacerbated the bearish sentiment towards Solana among these sizable stakeholders.
An on-chain analytics platform, Lookonchain, highlighted a significant maneuver in the crypto community. A whale recently sold 114,300 SOL, approximating $16 million, on Binance and OKX since August 4. The most recent transaction took place on August 20, when 10,000 SOL, valued at $1.41 million, were offloaded.
Earlier reports noted a whale who divested $86 million worth of Solana this year. Returning to the market, this same investor recently sold another 20,000 SOL, equating to $2.9 million. In total, this whale has now sold 614,000 SOL, totaling $89 million, since January 15.
Though the precise motivations behind these sales are unclear, they could correlate with a general bearish outlook within the Solana ecosystem. Once known for its vibrant meme coin environment, Solana now faces competition from networks like Tron and Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Concurrently, Solana’s decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume has declined significantly, which may influence its price trajectory.
Data from DeFiLlama indicates Solana’s DEX volume has decreased by over 20% in the past seven days. By contrast, Tron and BSC have seen their trading volumes rise by 436% and 15%, respectively. This trend weighs on Solana’s market performance, as its price has stagnated while other top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap have shown gains in the same period.
Adding to the negative sentiment, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently rejected the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s (CBOE) 19b-4 filings for Spot Solana ETFs. The SEC maintains that Solana qualifies as a security, further dampening investor confidence.
However, not all whales are disheartened. Some view the current market condition as an opportunity to accumulate more SOL. Two notable investors made significant purchases recently. The first whale withdrew 30,000 SOL, valued at $4.25 million, from Binance and staked these tokens on August 21. Another whale withdrew 26,245 SOL, worth $3.72 million, and also staked them on August 21. This strategy could prove beneficial if Solana’s fundamentals improve. Crypto analyst Ali Martinez has previously predicted that SOL could reach $1,000 in this bull market.
As of the latest data from CoinMarketCap, Solana is trading at approximately $142, reflecting a decline over the last 24 hours.
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