Solana ETF's explosive start: Behind the net inflow of 110 million USD, why is the SOL price trapped below 200 USD?

Written by: White55, Mars Finance

On October 28, the Solana ETF product in the United States officially launched for trading, with data showing a total trading volume of 16 million USD in the first 30 minutes. Among them, the trading volume of $BSOL was 11.7 million USD, while the trading volumes of $SSK and $GSOL were 2.6 million USD and 1.6 million USD, respectively.

When the news of the ETF approval was announced, the price of SOL briefly rose by 3%, surpassing $201, but fell back within less than a day.

ETFs should have been the rocket fuel to propel Solana towards $300 or even $400.

As of the time of writing, the cumulative net inflow of SOL ETF over the past two days is 117 million USD, but SOL is still fluctuating around 194 USD and has not been able to effectively break through the key resistance level of 200 USD.

The gap between market expectations and reality

The ETF, which is seen as a milestone benefit in traditional financial markets, has instead shown a classic trend of “buy the expectation, sell the fact” in Solana.

Multiple analysts have predicted that SOL will soar to the $300-$400 range after the ETF approval. However, in reality, even with the dual benefits of the approval of the U.S. SSK ETF and the Hong Kong Solana spot ETF, SOL is still trapped below $200.

Market participants originally expected Solana to replicate the upward trajectory of Bitcoin and Ethereum following ETF approvals.

But when the ETF was actually implemented, they found that there were fundamental differences. Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, the Solana ETF faces a more complex market environment and regulatory uncertainties.

Grayscale Ethereum Trust managed $10 billion in assets one month before the launch of the spot Ethereum ETF, while Grayscale Solana Trust only managed about $75 million, with a total net asset value of just $430 million. This huge gap suggests that institutional demand is unlikely to have a significant impact on the price of SOL.

The market dynamics behind “good news has been fully released”

In the weeks leading up to the ETF announcement, the price of SOL has dropped nearly 20% from its peak. This “pre-drop” suggests that insiders or savvy investors may have sold off their positions before the news was made public to realize profits. This “buy the rumor, sell the news” pattern is not uncommon in the cryptocurrency market.

Renowned business consultant Huo Hongyi pointed out: “After the announcement of the approval of the SOL ETF, the price surged at one point but quickly fell back to close to its original position. This kind of 'good news being realized and sold off' trend actually reflects a signal: market expectations are becoming more mature.” Structural changes in the market are also one of the influencing factors.

In the next two months, approximately $585 million worth of SOL will be unlocked from staking, increasing the potential supply in the market. At the same time, some of Solana's most successful decentralized applications (DApps) are also regularly selling off their SOL holdings. For instance, the token issuance platform Pump has transferred over $404 million worth of SOL to exchanges in 2025 alone.

The mathematical reality of ETF capital inflow and market capitalization

From a purely mathematical perspective, the relationship between the inflow of funds into the Solana ETF and its market capitalization may explain why the price reaction is relatively muted.

This means that even a relatively small amount of capital flowing into Solana can have a significant impact on its price.

However, this impact will be partially offset by Solana's higher annual inflation rate (approximately 4.3%)—while Bitcoin and Ethereum have annual inflation rates of only 0.8% and 0.5%, respectively.

The plan for Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital to inject $1.65 billion into a large publicly traded Solana treasury company sounds impressive, but this figure appears relatively limited in the face of Solana's total market capitalization.

Competitive environment and technical challenges

Another reality that Solana faces is the increasingly fierce competition among public blockchains.

When Robinhood chose to launch tokenized stock trading on the Ethereum Layer 2 network, and Coinbase collaborated with Shopify to launch on-chain payments on the Base network, the appeal of Solana as the preferred solution for high-output DApps was challenged.

Despite Solana's technical advantages—processing over 65,000 transactions per second, with transaction fees of just a few cents, and reducing transaction confirmation times from about 12 seconds to 150 milliseconds through upgrades—the network stability issues remain its Achilles' heel.

Solana has experienced multiple network outages in its history, and this technical risk has made traditional financial institutions cautious about embracing Solana. JPMorgan predicts that even if a Solana ETF is approved, its first-year inflow of funds may only be one-seventh of that of Ethereum.

As more Solana ETFs are approved, the market's reaction to such news will become more rational.

In the future, investors will pay more attention to fundamentals and practical application scenarios, rather than simply chasing policy dividends. Investment institutions are building a triangular hedge portfolio of SOL with BTC and ETH, while also buying put options as insurance. This “smart approach of both gaining and protecting” may be more in line with the current market environment than going all-in. The Solana network itself is still in a rapid development stage, and its true test lies in whether it can convert its technological advantages into sustainable commercial applications.