Author: kkk
On August 13, ETH strongly broke through $4,700, reaching a four-year high, while SOL, during the same period, seemed powerless, hovering around $200. In 2024, Pump.fun drove a meme frenzy across the entire Solana chain. Earlier this year, Trump launched $TRUMP on it, pushing SOL's price to around $300, which led to a clamor for 'Solana to replace ETH.'
However, the actual trend has given the market a calm response. Although ETH and SOL are both advancing treasury strategies, trying to accumulate 'bullets' for their ecosystems, their performances have shown significant divergence— the SOL/ETH exchange rate has dropped from 0.09 at the beginning of the year to 0.042, with a weak pattern throughout the year. The underlying reasons may not only be price fluctuations but also a comprehensive reflection of narrative heat, ecosystem structure, and capital expectation differences.
Treasury Strategy: The Dual Gap Between Leaders and Capital Scale
On June 30, Wall Street 'contrarian bull' Tom Lee joined BitMine as chairman while ETH was still hovering around $2,500. Just a month and a half later, ETH surged to $4,700, an increase of 88%. Lee has long appeared on major financial programs like CNBC and Bloomberg. Early in 2022, during the significant drop in U.S. stocks, he reversed market pessimism with precise 'bottom-fishing' statements. Now, this market opinion leader has become the best spokesperson for ETH's treasury. Meanwhile, 'Cathie Wood' from ARK Invest also invested $182 million to purchase BMNR stock, adding fuel to the confidence of the ETH camp.
In contrast, although both ETH and SOL have their respective treasury strategy companies, their scales differ significantly. In terms of holding scale, treasury strategy companies for BTC and ETH occupy the top ten positions. The leader of 'ETH MicroStrategy', BitMine Immersion (BMNR), recently planned to increase its financing scale by $20 billion to increase its ETH holdings, currently boasting an NAV (Net Asset Value) of $5.3 billion, second only to MSTR. Such a level of capital means it has more ample 'bullets' during market fluctuations and a stronger ability to shape market trends. Currently, the NAV of the leading 'SOL MicroStrategy' is only $365 million, ranking 11th, over ten times less than BMNR. The lack of a globally influential public spokesperson like Tom Lee and the absence of comparable capital firepower naturally leaves SOL feeling powerless in this market cycle.
However, recent moves from Solana are gradually addressing this shortcoming. On August 12, 'SOL MicroStrategy' Upexi established a brand new advisory committee and appointed Arthur Hayes as the first member. Hayes is the co-founder of BitMEX, the pioneer of perpetual contracts, and has served as a trader at Deutsche Bank and Citigroup. He now leads the digital asset investment fund Maelstrom. With a traditional finance background and a deep understanding of crypto market structure, he can provide practical guidance for institutional financing and digital asset strategies.
Upexi's strategic goal is very clear: to further expand its layout in SOL by utilizing Solana's scalability and efficiency. According to public documents, the company currently holds over 1.8 million SOL (worth about $365 million) and will stake part of its holdings to earn 7%-9% returns, ensuring long-term holding while generating stable cash flow. It is noteworthy that the company will acquire locked SOL at a discounted price, thereby providing returns to shareholders. Upexi will recruit more members to join the advisory committee in the future to provide expertise in the cryptocurrency and financial fields.
Meanwhile, other listed companies are also increasing their SOL holdings, such as DFDV further expanding its SOL holdings, currently exceeding 1 million coins; BTCM disclosed a new purchase of about 27,190 SOL and plans to convert some crypto assets into Solana. This institutional demand is expected to reduce circulating chips in the secondary market, thereby forming support on the supply-demand level.
ETH ETF Leads, SOL ETF Awaits Breakthrough
The management scale of the ETH spot ETF has exceeded $22 billion, not only verifying institutional recognition of ETH but also rapidly establishing its absolute advantage in liquidity and market depth. With the continuous inflow of institutional capital, BlackRock also submitted an ETH ETF staking application last month, which, once approved, will bring stable staking returns to holders and attract more long-term capital to enter the market.
In contrast, although REX-Osprey launched a Solana ETF (SSK) with a staking mechanism in July, market enthusiasm has remained low, with net inflows of zero on most trading days and a cumulative inflow of only about $150 million since its listing. Furthermore, it is not a standard spot ETF registered with the SEC, but rather holds SOL indirectly through other vehicles. This structure combines a staking mechanism with offshore ETF configurations, increasing the complexity of understanding and operation, leading some institutions to remain on the sidelines; the issuer REX lacks the influence of Wall Street giants like BlackRock and Fidelity and lacks heavyweight institutional endorsements.
Currently, the market's focus is shifting towards the SOL spot ETF applications expected to be approved in October by firms like VanEck and Grayscale. Once regulatory approval is granted, combined with capital drives from treasury strategies, if institutional investors begin to seek diversification from BTC and ETH to other quality assets, the SOL ETF may bring new growth points to the Solana ecosystem.
The Fork in Application Narratives
From the perspective of application narratives, ETH and Solana are currently on two completely different tracks.
Ethereum is steadily building a compliant and sustainable on-chain financial infrastructure. The explosion of stablecoins has been described by Tom Lee as the 'ChatGPT moment' for the crypto industry. Currently, the global market value of stablecoins has surpassed $250 billion, with more than half of the issuance and about 30% of Gas fees occurring on the Ethereum network. This not only further solidifies ETH's core position in payment and settlement systems but also provides a continuous cash flow for staking, DeFi yields, and on-chain infrastructure businesses.
Moreover, Robinhood has issued stock tokens on Ethereum Layer 2, and Coinbase is vigorously developing the Base chain ecosystem, providing more application scenarios for ETH. Currently, Ethereum has almost become the only main chain that can simultaneously meet regulatory adaptability, ecosystem maturity, and scale effects. Once ETH occupies critical nodes in stablecoin payments and RWA settlements, its strategic position will be prioritized by financial institutions like a 'structural subscription right'.
On the Solana side, the main narrative is more focused on meme coins and the Launchpad battle, which are high-volatility tracks that have been discussed for a long time. Despite multiple attempts to enter the RWA field this year, with the slogan 'Internet Capital Market', supporting a series of tokens like $IBRL and Believe ecosystem, all ended in failure. However, a turning point recently emerged. On August 8, CMB International, a subsidiary of China Merchants Bank, partnered with Singapore's DigiFT and Solana public chain service provider OnChain to tokenize a dollar money market fund that is mutually recognized in Hong Kong and Singapore, issuing CMBMINT on-chain, setting a benchmark for compliant cross-border RWA cooperation. On that day, SOL's price broke through $200, and the market immediately regarded it as a potential new narrative starting point, hoping this new application scenario could open up broader institutional capital channels for Solana.
Summary
Currently, although Solana still lags behind ETH in key indicators such as market popularity and exchange rate performance, its underlying competitiveness and potential remain intact. As the 'American chain', it inherently possesses higher regulatory adaptability and capital recognition. At present, ETH has gained institutional favor through treasury strategies, ETF fever, RWA, and stablecoin applications, but this also leaves SOL with opportunities for 'catch-up' and narrative switching.
Structurally, the expectation of spot ETF approval will open a new entry point for institutional capital into SOL. Once products from giants like VanEck and Grayscale are approved, market liquidity and trading depth may experience a leap. Additionally, the cross-border landing cases of RWA have demonstrated that Solana's application capabilities on high-performance public chains extend beyond memes and Launchpad; there is still significant room for growth in DeFi, payments, and asset tokenization. The current pullback seems more like a buildup of strength rather than a closing curtain.
