Solana rally continues on memecoin activity and DeFi; ether implied volatility outpace bitcoin's

Solana's continued price rise recently remains propelled by memecoin trading on its network, according to the founder of a decentralized exhange. 

Zeta Markets Founder Tristan Frizza said the increase in the token's value is mostly driven by an increase in the Solana network's memecoin trading activity. "Memecoins have certainly become a significant driver of activity on Solana. Beyond speculation, this showcases Solana’s ability to handle high transaction volumes with low fees, making it the perfect environment for retail users." Frizza told The Block.

To illustrate this, Frizza pointed to on-chain metrics such Solana’s total value locked (TVL) having surpassed $4.9 billion. "This indicates robust network activity, and the number of active users has also been constantly growing, with monthly active addresses hitting a new all-time high of 41.65 million in May," Frizza added.

Solana has gained by over 5% in the past 24 hours and is now trading at $174.83 as of the time of writing, according to  The Block's Price Page.

Solana boosted by growth in DeFi

According to this week's Bitfinex Alpha report, the Solana DeFi ecosystem is experiencing growth, evident in its lending, liquid staking, and perpetual markets.

"This resurgence in Solana is attributable to the advantages it offers over other blockchains in terms of transactions per second throughput and scalability. Both Solana and Ethereum continue to grow, but the rise in Solana is notable, and despite the fact that by TVL, Solana is four places behind Ethereum, it is second in terms of decentralized exchange volumes by chain, as more users find utility in its blockchain," Bitfinex analysts said. 

Ether implied volatility higher than that of bitcoin

At the top of the cryptocurrency market cap rankings, ether is expected to experience larger price fluctuations this month compared to bitcoin. According to QCP Capital analysts, ether options implied volatility (IV) is currently higher than that for bitcoin, indicating that traders anticipate increased price fluctuations for ether, possibly in response to the upcoming launch of spot ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

"Bullishness is likely to continue as the market waits for the spot ether ETF to usher in new demand, with the options market certainly reflecting this, with ether vols [IV] still trading 15% over bitcoin vols," QCP Capital analysts said.

Block Scholes Head of Research Andrew Melville observed that ether's price fluctuations have become more significant since mid-May than bitcoin's, highlighting the largest disparity in volatility between both tokens since the FTX collapse in November 2022.

"The heightened premium assigned to volatility reflects increased uncertainty particularly in the short term, with potential updates to ether ETF applications looming. However, unlike the recent rally, there's not as much demand for ether's price to go higher quickly. Overall, the market sentiment appears cautiously optimistic, with similar short-term positioning between both ether and bitcoin," Melville said.