Solana financing interest rate drops to zero! After 1.73 billion dollars liquidation, can SOL surge to 300 dollars?

SOL rebounded from 167 USD to 200 USD, but the perpetual futures funding rate hovers at 0%, on-chain activity decreased by 35% month-on-month, BNB Chain and Hyperliquid are grabbing market share, facing multiple challenges to break through 300 USD by the end of the year.

Interest Rate Hits Zero: Traders' Bullish Confidence Evaporates

(Source: Laevitas)

The native token SOL of Solana rose above $200 on October 14, rebounding approximately 20% from a low of $167 during last Friday's flash crash. However, this rebound lacks key momentum indicators for support—the perpetual futures funding rate is currently hovering around 0%, indicating that demand for leveraged long positions remains sluggish.

Laevitas.ch data shows that under normal market conditions, healthy bullish market financing rates typically remain between an annualized 6% to 12%, indicating that bulls (buyers) are willing to pay a premium to maintain their positions. Notably, the financing rate for SOL was about 4% before the crash on Friday, already below the neutral range, suggesting that the market had shown signs of overheating before reaching historical highs.

When the financing interest rate turns negative, it usually indicates that the bears (sellers) are in control and willing to pay costs to maintain short positions. However, this situation rarely lasts long, as the costs of maintaining short bets are high. Currently, the SOL financing interest rate has not turned negative, but the near-zero level reflects traders' extreme caution in establishing new long positions.

17.3 billion dollars in liquidations left a shadow

The lightning crash on Friday resulted in a record $1.73 billion in SOL long liquidations, leaving a lasting psychological shadow over the derivatives market. After large-scale liquidations, surviving traders often need weeks to rebuild their confidence, while new participants will wait for clearer trend confirmations.

This ongoing pressure is not limited to [Solana]/buy-solana-sol(, but reflects the broader damage caused by the Friday liquidation event to the entire cryptocurrency industry. However, as a high Beta asset, the speed of recovery in the derivatives market for SOL directly affects whether the price can challenge the $300 mark in the short term.

) on-chain activity softens: online revenue plummets 35% month-on-month

![Blockchain Cost Ranking for 7 Days]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-87a9b3933a-4f09dd2b5f-153d09-69ad2a.webp(

(Source: Nansen)

Compared to the sentiment indicators of the derivatives market, the deterioration of the on-chain fundamentals is even more concerning. DefiLlama data shows that decentralized applications (DApp) on Solana generated $35.9 million in revenue last week, while network fees totaled $6.5 million, a month-on-month decrease of 35%.

This slowdown has weakened the actual demand for SOL as a blockchain computing payment token. When network activity decreases, the transaction fees paid by users also drop, directly affecting SOL's ability to capture economic value. More seriously, the decline in activity has also reduced the staking rewards for SOL holders, further weakening the holding incentive.

) The Aftermath of the Memecoin Craze Cooling Down

![Solana Weekly Network Fees and DApp Revenue][Solana]https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-87a9b3933a-6193eede00-153d09-69ad2a.webp(

(Source: DefiLlama)

Since the memecoin craze peaked in early 2025, activity on the Solana network has struggled to regain its vitality. The Pump.fun platform generated astonishing trading volume from January to March, pushing SOL to a historic high of $295 in January. However, as the speculation enthusiasm for memecoins waned, network traffic dependent on such applications also collapsed.

Despite the fact that the current trading price of SOL has dropped 31% from its historical high, the recovery speed of on-chain activities is far from keeping pace with the price rebound. This phenomenon of "decoupling of price and fundamentals" indicates that the current rebound may be more of a technical correction rather than driven by actual demand.

) Competitors Rising: BNB Chain and Hyperliquid Capture Market Share

The biggest threat facing Solana comes from an increasingly fierce competitive environment. Nansen data shows that over the past week, the transaction fee revenue of several competing networks has surged significantly, directly eroding Solana's market position.

· The Counterattack of BNB Chain

BNB Chain generated up to $59.1 million in transaction fee revenue last week, surpassing Solana to become the most active Layer 1 blockchain. This surge in growth is mainly attributed to the success of the four.meme platform — a memecoin launch platform fully integrated with the BNB platform wallet, seen as a direct competitor to Solana's Pump.fun.

The advantages of Four.meme are:

Seamless User Experience: Deeply integrated with the BNB platform ecosystem, lowering the entry barrier for new users.

Liquidity Advantage: Direct access to the large user base of the BNB platform

Lower Transaction Fees: The transaction costs on BNB Chain remain stable even under high load.

Even assuming that the momentum of the BNB Chain is merely a temporary memecoin hype, this wave of competition has proven that Solana no longer holds a monopoly position in the memecoin launch platform space.

( Comprehensive Rebound of the Ethereum Ecosystem

The transaction fees across the entire Ethereum ecosystem have also surged significantly. The weekly costs of layer 2 scaling networks such as Arbitrum and Polygon have increased by 40% or more. Notably:

Uniswap sets a new historical high: weekly transaction fees reached $83.8 million, mainly benefiting from the activity on the Ethereum mainnet. This shows that DeFi users are returning to the Ethereum ecosystem rather than opting for alternative DEXs on Solana.

Hyperliquid Benefiting from Volatility: This emerging decentralized derivatives platform saw a significant surge in trading volume during Friday's market volatility. Compared to the derivatives protocols on Solana, Hyperliquid's order book model demonstrates better resilience in extreme volatility.

) Structural Loss of Market Share

The intensifying competition is not just a short-term phenomenon. Solana's leading position in the decentralized exchange (DEX) market is gradually diminishing:

Q4 2024: Solana DEX trading volume accounts for about 35% of the overall market.

Q1 2025: Market share drops to about 28%

Q2 2025 to date: further dropped to about 22%

This trend decline shows that Solana is facing not only cyclical activity slowdown but also structural competitive pressure.

SOL Price Prediction: $300 Target Faces Multiple Resistance

![Deribit's SOL options put/call ratio]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-87a9b3933a-3a77eacae0-153d09-69ad2a.webp###

(Source: Laevitas)

Despite the weak on-chain activity and increasing competition, traders' derivatives positions have not turned clearly bearish. Data from the Deribit platform shows that the put/call options trading volume ratio for SOL has remained below 90% over the past week, indicating weak demand for neutral or bearish positions.

Historically, when traders anticipate a market pullback, this indicator rises above 180%—the last time it reached this level was on September 20, when the SOL price increased by 26.7% over the following 11 days. Currently, a reading below 90% indicates that traders are neither clearly bullish nor actively shorting, but are taking a wait-and-see approach.

A single catalyst is not enough to drive a breakthrough

The market's widespread discussion about the expected approval of the US spot Solana ETF may not be sufficient to push the price of SOL up to $300 in the short term. Reasons include:

Time uncertainty: Even if the SEC's attitude turns friendly, the ETF approval process will still take months, making it difficult to be finalized before the end of the year.

Referring to the experience of Bitcoin: After the approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF, the price rose initially and then experienced several months of sideways consolidation before restarting the upward trend.

Fundamentals Drag: If on-chain activity continues to be weak, the capital inflow brought by ETFs may be offset by market share losses to competitors.

From a technical perspective, SOL needs to reclaim the resistance level of 240 USD to open the path towards 300 USD. However, against the backdrop of financing interest rates approaching zero, a 35% decline in network income, and the rise of competitors, the likelihood of achieving this goal by the end of 2025 is low.

Solana Trading Indicators Summary: Cautiously Optimistic but Not Blindly

Solana is currently at a critical turning point: the price has rebounded 20% from Friday's low, but lacks support from derivatives demand and on-chain activity. Traders have not turned bearish yet, but have also not shown sufficient bullish confidence. Under the competitive pressure from the BNB Chain and Ethereum ecosystem, SOL needs a new narrative catalyst to reignite market enthusiasm.