The Solana network has recorded significant growth in daily active users fueled by memecoins.
SOL price is well positioned to rally above $170 if Bitcoin price reclaims $100k soon.
SOL Strategies Inc. (CSE: HODL), a Canadian company dedicated to the growth and development of the Solana blockchain, announced the purchase of 122,524 SOL worth about $18,250,730 at an average price of about $148.98 per coin. At the beginning of this month, SOL Strategies announced the closing of the initial $20 million of its $500 million convertible note facility.
“These purchases directly strengthen our three-pillar strategy of enterprise-grade validators, strategic SOL holdings, and Solana technology innovation,” Leah Wald, Chief Executive Officer of SOL Strategies, noted.
Major Factors Fueling Solana Network Growth
According to a recent report by VanEck, the meteoric growth of memecoins on the Solana network is the major driver of on-chain revenues. Furthermore, memecoin trading on the Solana network accounted for 44 percent and 35 percent of all decentralized exchanges (DEX) trading in January and April 2025 respectively.
“If we exclude stablecoins, SOL, and SOL liquid staking tokens, often on the other side of trades, memecoins represent 99% of Solana trading activity in January and 95% in April. While some question the sustainability of this trend, Solana has proven its unmatched ability to process large volumes of decentralized trading,” the report noted.
Meanwhile, market data analysis from Nansen shows that the top five Solana DeFi products – including Raydium, Fluxbeam, Pump.fun, and Jupiter – recorded over 239 million users in the past 30 days.
Midterm Expectations for SOL Price
After recording a palpable growth in April, Solana price has been trapped in a correction phase in the past two weeks. The large-cap altcoin, with a fully diluted valuation of about $85 billion and a total value locked of around $7.6 billion, dropped around 2 per in the past 24 hours to trade around $142 on Tuesday, May 6, during the mid-North American session.
From a technical analysis standpoint, the SOL price is well positioned to rally towards $174 if the buyers hold above $140 in the coming days. In case of a breach of the support level around $142, SOL price will drop towards the next liquidity level around $125.
After the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) minutes and the digital asset summit on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, approximately $2.09 billion in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) options expire today.
The expiration may influence market conditions, with investors monitoring potential shifts.
Over $2 Billion in Options Expiry Today
According to Deribit, $1.826 billion in Bitcoin options expire today. The maximum pain point of these contracts stands at $85,000.
These options include 21,596 contracts, slightly fewer than last week’s 35,176. Despite recent volatility, the put-to-call ratio of 0.83 indicates a general bullish sentiment.
Ethereum has $264.46 million in options expiring, involving 133,447 contracts. This figure is also lower than the previous week’s 223,395 contracts. The maximum pain point for these options is $2,000, and the put-to-call ratio is 0.62.
As the options contracts near expiration at 8:00 UTC today, Bitcoin and Ethereum prices are expected to approach their respective maximum pain points. According to BeInCrypto data, BTC traded for $84,414, whereas ETH exchanged hands for $1,977.
This suggests a modest upside for Bitcoin and Ethereum towards the $85,000 and $2,000 strike prices, respectively. This surge is plausible given smart money’s Strategy in options trading, pushing prices toward the “max pain” level. Here, the highest number of contracts, both calls and puts, expire worthless.
“Will we see a volatility squeeze or a slow unwind?” Deribit posed in a post on X (Twitter).
Based on Bitcoin and Ethereum’s put-to-call ratios, both below 1, call options (purchases) have a higher prevalence than put options (sales).
Market Sentiment Ahead of Today’s Options Expiry
Analysts from crypto options trading tool Greeks.live provided insights on the current market sentiment, highlighting a divided trader community. On the one hand, some expect a price drop after the FOMC meeting, as policymakers rejected further interest rate cuts, effectively disappointing the crypto market.
On the other hand, some anticipate a temporary rise before choppy conditions. With this, the analysts note the range between $83,000 and $85,000 as the area of interest, with expected volatility around President Trump-related developments and potential MicroStrategy (now Strategy) purchases.
“Expect chop and drift lower before heading higher again on Monday, despite the current pump not being viewed as sustainable,” Greeks.live analysts observed.
Even as Bitget’s Chen remains optimistic, traders and investors should brace for short-term volatility. Historically, options expirations tend to cause temporary price movements. However, the market usually stabilizes shortly after.
Welcome to the US Morning Crypto News Briefing—your essential rundown of the most important developments in crypto for the day ahead.
Grab a coffee to see what analysts say about Bitcoin amid the showdown between BTC behemoth Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and Jack Mallers’ investment firm, 21 Capital. With their Bitcoin models coming into question, is there a specific definition of what winning means in Bitcoin?
Strategy Grows Bitcoin Stockpile, Buys $1.42 Billion in BTC
Strategy announced that it recently purchased another 15,355 BTC worth approximately $1.42 billion at an average price of $92,737 last week.
The firm currently holds 553,555 BTC, valued at approximately $52.7 billion. The average buying price is $68,459, and the unrealized profit is $14.8 billion.
“By continuing to grow its Bitcoin holdings, the company maintains its status as a major force in the cryptocurrency market, drawing interest from investors and industry analysts. Strategy is the largest Bitcoin Treasury Company, an independent, publicly traded business intelligence company, and a Nasdaq 100 stock,” Phoenix reported.
A recent US Crypto News publication highlighted the advent of 21 Capital. The Bitcoin investment firm sprouted after Cantor Fitzgerald, SoftBank, Tether, and Bitfinex pooled $3 billion in capital.
Based on sentiment, this new venture could inadvertently challenge Strategy’s position at the helm of corporate Bitcoin ownership in a model sense. According to 21 Capital, Strategy size could make increasing its Bitcoin per share difficult, a metric investors tend to consider.
Amid chatter that 21 Capital could threaten the Michael Saylor-led firm, BitStrategy, a shareholder at Strategy, challenged the prospective market rival’s business model.
Tension Grows in Bitcoin Treasury Space
In a detailed post on X (Twitter), BitStrategy acknowledged the brewing tension in the Bitcoin treasury arena. However, it holds that Strategy is way ahead of the competition.
“Their company is in direct competition with ours, and they seek to exploit a perceived vulnerability in our structure, openly highlighting their strengths relative to ours to win investment,” BitStrategy challenged in a recent post.
Beyond BTC Yield, also reported in a recent US Crypto News publication, the firm initiated key performance indicators months ago- BTC Gain and BTC $ Gain.
Bitcoin Gain multiplies the BTC Yield by Strategy’s aggregate balance, reflecting the scale of the firm’s operations.
Bitcoin $ Gain takes this further, converting the BTC Gain into dollar terms, for added transparency.
This proactivity by Strategy suggests a commitment to defend its position as a leading Bitcoin-holding corporation amidst rising rivals.
“You can fake an impressive BTC Yield. You cannot fake an impressive BTC Gain,” BitStrategy chimed.
However, analyst KenjiKoshu argues that while Strategy may show substantial Bitcoin gains, smaller companies like 21 Capital could achieve higher Bitcoin per share.
“As someone who has done deep thinking about why MSTR is undervalued, it might be true BTC gain can still be substantial if not higher for MSTR. On a per-share basis, however, which would be what supports the stock; it will be hard to deny a smaller, similarly reputable company is going to make more Bitcoin per share when on the same strategy,” the analyst wrote.
This outlook aligns with sentiment from 21 Capital that Strategy’s large size impedes increasing its Bitcoin per share.
However, BitStrategy articulated that the point of BTC Gain and BTC $ Gain signals the importance of a whole-of-company view of performance relative to a per-share view.
Per the shareholder, there is no agreed-upon conventional valuation methodology for Bitcoin companies. This means any metric is somewhat arbitrary.
Investors increasingly turn to digital assets as a safe haven, with Bitcoin becoming a hedge against the US dollar’s volatility as crypto inflows surge to $3.4 billion.
