Solana Struggles Against Bitcoin & Ethereum: Glassnode Explains Why

The on-chain analytics firm Glassnode has revealed the reason why Solana (SOL) has recently been lagging behind Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

In a new post on X, Glassnode has discussed about how the recent performance of Solana has stacked up against the two largest coins in the sector. “Looking at price performance, SOL outpaced both ETH and BTC for most of Q4 2024,” notes the analytics firm. “However, since early December, ETH has taken the lead, outperforming the other two assets.”

As it stands right now, Bitcoin is up around 18% over the past month, Ethereum 28%, and Solana 3%. Thus, SOL has clearly fallen off after being the market leader just earlier.

What could be behind this shift in the market? The answer to the question could lie in the capital flows that these cryptocurrencies have recently been observing.

In order to estimate the capital flows for the assets, Glassnode has made use of the Realized Cap indicator. The “Realized Cap” refers to an on-chain capitalization model that calculates the total value of any digital asset by assuming that the ‘real’ value of any token in circulation is the price at which it was last transacted on the blockchain.

Since the last transfer for any coin is likely to represent the last point at which it changed hands, the price at its time could be considered its cost basis. Thus, the Realized Cap is a sum of the cost basis of all coins in the circulating supply or, more simply, a measure of the total amount of capital that the investors as a whole have put into the cryptocurrency.

In this view, changes in the Realized Cap essentially reflect the amount of capital that’s exiting out of or entering into the asset. Below is the chart for the 7-day change in the indicator shared by the analytics firm, which showcases these outflows/inflows happening for Solana and others.

From the chart, it’s visible that the 7-day change in the Realized Cap was at notable positive levels between September and early December. Bitcoin and Ethereum also observed capital inflows in this period, but SOL was simply growing at a significantly faster pace.

This month, though, the sector has seen a flip as both Bitcoin and Ethereum have pulled ahead of Solana. The earlier higher capital inflows were likely the drivers behind SOL’s outperformance, so with them gone, it makes sense that the top two assets would take over.

Whereas Bitcoin and Ethereum have enjoyed a surge over the last few days, Solana has been moving in a sideways trajectory as its price is still trading around $221.