The price of the Solana token $SOL has fallen by double-digit percentages over the past week as meme launch platform Pump.fun continued to sell off its holdings.

Solana's price has fallen more than 12% in the week ending September 4 at 11:06 UTC, trading at $128. The token is down 3.8% on the daily chart, according to Cointelegraph.

Solana's price drop came after an account linked to meme launch platform Pump.fun sold another $1.38 million in SOL tokens, according to a Sept. 3 Lookonchain post:

"Pump.fun Fee Account sold 10,300 $SOL ($1.38M) at $134.46 just 40 minutes ago!"

With the latest transaction, Pump.fun sold a total of $41.64 million in SOL at an average price of $157.50 per token.

Whales, or large cryptocurrency holders, can have a significant impact on a cryptocurrency’s price movement due to the large amount of capital they control. Traders often watch whale selling patterns for clues about a cryptocurrency’s short-term price trajectory.

Are memes putting pressure on Solana's price?

The current meme boom on Solana may put pressure on the token's price.

According to popular crypto trader and podcast host Luke Martin, Solana's price rally turned sideways once users started mass memeing on Pump.fun.

The trader wrote in his message to X on September 4:

"If you overlay the Pump.fun launch chart on the Solana price chart, it becomes clear that SOL stopped growing almost at the same time that people started launching a lot of memes."

However, Solana's price also remains highly correlated with the price of Bitcoin (BTC), which could be another explanation for the sideways movement.

Over the past three months, the price of Bitcoin has fallen nearly 18%, while the price of Solana has fallen nearly 22%, according to Bitstamp data.

Can the Solana ETF Pull SOL Out of Its Price Slump?

Solana could be the next major cryptocurrency to list a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US, which could be a significant price catalyst.

Brazil's first ETF, Solana, was approved on August 7, setting a precedent for other jurisdictions around the world.

While a Solana ETF in the U.S. is still unclear, its unlikely prospects make it a strong price catalyst if approved, according to Alejo Pinto, former head of IBM blockchain growth and founder of Solana's second-layer network Lumio.

Others expect a potential Solana ETF as early as the end of 2024, including Mantan Dave, co-founder of Palisade, a digital asset custody platform backed by Ripple. He said:

"Given the current election season and prevailing sentiment, we will likely see approval of the Solana ETF before the end of this year. The key question is whether this will happen before or after the election."

ETFs can significantly increase the price of the underlying cryptocurrency. For Bitcoin, spot ETFs accounted for about 75% of new investment in the token by February 15, when it surpassed the $50,000 mark.

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