
Treasury size and ETF process are both lagging behind: Why did SOL go from being a “frontrunner” to following ETH?
Author: kkk Original title: From leading to following: Why SOL can't beat ETH's offensive On August 13, ETH surpassed 4,700 US dollars and hit a new high in 4 years, while SOL during the same period seemed unable to do so and remained around $200. In 2024, Pump.fun spurred a meme frenzy across the Solana chain. At the beginning of the year, Trump even launched $TRUMP on it, and the price of SOL rushed to around $300, which once made the call for “Solana to replace ETH” raging. However, the actual trend gave the market a calm answer. Although ETH and SOL simultaneously promoted treasury strategies in an attempt to accumulate “bullets” for the ecosystem, the performance of the two was clearly divided — the SOL/ETH exchange rate fell from 0.09 at the beginning of the year to 0.042, and the pattern of weakness continued throughout the year. The reason behind it is probably not only price fluctuations, but also a comprehensive reflection of differences in narrative popularity, ecological structure, and financial expectations. Treasury Strategy: The double gap between leaders and capital size On June 30, Wall Street's “contrarian bully” Tom Lee airdropped BitMine Chairman. On the same day, ETH was still hovering at $2,500. After just a month and a half, ETH went straight to $4700, up 88%. Lee has appeared on first-line financial programs such as CNBC and Bloomberg for many years. As early as 2022, when US stocks plummeted, he reversed market pessimism with accurate “bottom-up” remarks. Today, the market opinion leader with its own traffic is the best spokesperson for the ETH treasury. Meanwhile, ARK Invest, a subsidiary of “Sister Mu”, also invested $182 million to buy BMNR shares, adding another boost to the confidence of the ETH camp. Furthermore, although both ETH and SOL have their own groups of treasury strategy companies, they are far different in size. In terms of position size, BTC and ETH treasury strategy companies dominated the top ten. BitMine Immersion (BMNR), the leader of “ETH MicroStrategy”, recently plans to increase the funding scale by $20 billion to increase ETH. It currently has a NAV (net asset value) of 5.3 billion US dollars, second only to MSTR. This level of capital means it has more “bullets” and a stronger ability to shape the market during market shocks. Currently, the “SOL MicroStrategy” leader's NAV is only 365 million US dollars, ranking 11th, which is more than 10 times different from BMNR. Lacking a globally influential public speaker like Tom Lee, and without the same amount of capital firepower, SOL naturally seems unable to cope in this round of markets, but recent new moves on Solona's side are gradually making up for this shortcoming. On August 12, “SOL MicroStrategy” Upexi formed a new advisory board and appointed Arthur Hayes as the first member. Hayes is the co-founder of BitMEX and the pioneer of perpetual contracts. He worked as a trader at Deutsche Bank and Citigroup, and now heads Maelstrom, a digital asset investment fund. He has both a background in traditional finance and is familiar with the structure of the crypto market, and can provide practical guidance on institutional financing and digital asset strategies. Upexi's strategic goal is clear: to use Solona's scalability and efficiency to further expand its presence in SOL. According to public documents, the company currently holds more than 1.8 million SOL (market value of about US$365 million) and pledges part of its positions to obtain 7% to 9% profit, which not only guarantees long-term holdings, but also creates stable cash flow. Notably, the company will acquire the locked SOL at a discounted price, thereby generating benefits for shareholders. Upexi will recruit more members to join the advisory committee in the future to provide the company with expertise in the field of cryptocurrency and finance. At the same time, other listed companies are also increasing their SOL holdings. For example, DFDV has further expanded its SOL holdings, which currently total more than 1 million units; BTCM revealed a new purchase of about 27,190 SOL and plans to convert some of its crypto assets to Solana. This institutional demand is expected to reduce the number of chips in circulation in the secondary market, thereby forming support at the supply and demand levels. E...








