Solana notes an increase of more than 20% in the past week. This is what on-chain data says about whether this is sustainable or not.
Solana’s trading volume has remained low despite price increases
In its latest insight post, the on-chain analytics company Sanitation looked at Solana’s underlying metrics to see what caused the latest price hike.
The company has been looking at the cryptocurrency’s “social volume” for various social media platforms and has found that the asset has recently gained more interest on Reddit.
Here, social volume refers to a metric that measures the total number of unique posts or threads on a given social media platform that report at least one SOL. This statistic can tell us about the amount of discussion the coin is currently receiving on the website in question.
Below is a graph showing the trend in Solana’s social volume across four major social media platforms: Telegram, Reddit, Twitter, and 4chan.
Looks like the value of the metric has been relatively low for most of these platforms | Source: Santiment
As shown in the chart above, Solana’s social volume on Reddit has seen some spikes as the cryptocurrency has risen over the past week. However, the other platforms have not seen as much discussion about the asset.
A notable spike in social volume on Reddit also occurred before the coin’s 5% surge in the past 24 hours. This could imply that user interest in the platform could partly contribute to the increase.
However, in terms of actual trading volume, SOL continued to see subdued activity despite the growth.
Here is a chart showing the trend in this indicator:
The value of the metric hasn't been too high recently | Source: Santiment
Interestingly enough, Solana’s initial strong rise was accompanied by higher volumes, but at the beginning of this month the indicator’s value showed some decline. Since this volume decline, SOL has moved mostly sideways.
In general, high trading volumes are required for a price increase to be sustainable. This is due to the fact that participation of a large number of traders is required to provide enough fuel for such a price movement.
Despite the sharp growth Solana has seen today, trading volume remaining at low values would indicate that the broader market does not find the rally interesting enough to make moves on the network. Of course, if the rally is to continue for a longer period of time, volumes may need to return to the market.
There’s also the fact that SOL funding rates (a measure of the periodic fee that futures traders exchange between themselves) on Binance and DyDx have turned quite positive recently.
Longs are dominating the market | Source: Santiment
The chart shows that the previous rise in the asset’s price may have been aided by the liquidation of shorts in the market, as funding rates were very negative at the time.
Since holders of long-term contracts now form the majority in the futures market, the likelihood of a long squeeze is now greater. In this case, if one takes place, the price would have a bearish effect.
SOL price
At the time of writing, Solana is trading around $20, up 20% over the past week.
SOL has shot up in the past day | Source: SOLUSD on TradingView
Featured image from GuerrillaBuzz on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, Santiment.net
