Solana’s having a tough time breaking through right now. SOL dropped 6% after getting rejected at $147 on Thursday, and it’s struggling to hold momentum. The token’s sitting around $138, and traders are starting to wonder how long it’ll take to get back to $200.
The problems are stacking up. Solana’s total value locked fell from $13.3 billion two months ago to $10.8 billion now. Major projects like Kamino, Jupiter, Jito, and Drift all saw deposits drop 20% or more. Even worse, DEX volumes crashed from $32 billion four weeks ago to just $19.2 billion in the seven days ending November 30th. That’s a 40% decline.
Part of the issue is competition heating up. Ethereum just did its Fusaka upgrade on Wednesday, which improved scalability, giving users less reason to move funds over to Solana. Plus there’s a new layer-1 chain like Monad posting $1.2 billion in DEX volumes during its first week alone.
The leverage demand for SOL futures is really weak too. The annualized funding rate’s at 4%, below the neutral 6% threshold. Meanwhile, other altcoins like XRP, Litecoin, and Dogecoin just got spot ETFs approved in the US, creating fresh competition for institutional money. Solana ETPs saw basically no inflows, while Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP ETPs pulled in $1.06 billion combined.
Conclusion
Solana faces mounting pressure from declining network activity, weak leverage demand, and intensifying competition from rival altcoin ETFs, making the path back to $200 dependent on improved macro conditions or catalyst events.
Also Read: Florida Court Opens Binance BTC Theft Case

