Solana ETF Sees $39M Weekly Inflow, Futures Open Interest Rises 30%

Author: Claude, Deep潮 TechFlow

DeepOcean Summary: Solana spot ETFs recorded net inflows of $39.23 million last week, marking the strongest weekly performance since February, with Bitwise BSOL accounting for 92% of the total. Open interest in futures surged 29.5% in the first two weeks of May to $6.4 billion, as demand from both spot and derivatives markets increased simultaneously.

A technical Adam & Eve bottom pattern has emerged, targeting $120. Meanwhile, Solana’s largest consensus upgrade to date, Alpenglow, launched on the community testnet on May 11, with co-founder Yakovenko indicating that mainnet deployment could occur as early as next quarter. Bullish signals are simultaneously emerging across funding rates, derivatives, and on-chain fundamentals.

SOL is experiencing a multi-dimensional signal convergence.

According to Cointelegraph on May 11, Solana spot ETFs recorded net inflows of $39.23 million last week, marking the strongest weekly performance since February this year. During the same period, the price of SOL rose approximately 15% over seven days to around $97, while open interest in futures contracts increased by nearly $1.5 billion over the past half-month.

The on-chain holder structure is also quietly shifting: traders and speculative capital have gradually exited during the four-month consolidation, allowing strong holders to regain control of the supply. Any volume surge following the sharp decline in trading activity is likely to push prices upward.

Signals from multiple independent data sources are lighting up simultaneously.

According to SoSoValue data, last week Solana spot ETFs saw net inflows of $39.23 million, with Bitwise’s staked ETF, BSOL, contributing $36 million—approximately 92%—and Fidelity’s FSOL attracting around $1.8 million. Since its launch, BSOL has accumulated approximately $861 million in assets, accounting for 81% of the total cumulative inflows into all Solana spot ETFs (approximately $1.06 billion).

The significance of this figure must be understood within a longer time frame. According to BeInCrypto, citing SoSoValue data, Solana ETF’s monthly inflows have declined for six consecutive months since peaking at $419 million in November last year: $148 million in December, $105 million in January, $63 million in February, $45.44 million in March, and just $39.93 million in April—the lowest monthly performance since the product’s launch. However, the weekly inflows over the first two weeks of May have already approached the total for April; if this pace continues, it would mark the first reversal of the six-month downward trend.

As of the time of publication, the total net assets of all SOL spot ETFs amount to approximately $938 million, with SOL accounting for about 1.82% of the ETFs' net assets, and cumulative net inflows surpassing $1 billion.

The signals in the derivatives market are equally clear.

According to Coinglass data, SOL futures open interest rose from $4.94 billion on May 1 to $6.4 billion, increasing by 29.5% in half a month, with an approximate addition of $1.5 billion. This is not a case of leveraged positioning among existing capital, but direct evidence of new funds entering the market.

Buy-side demand in the spot market is also contributing. According to Velo.Chart data, the cumulative volume difference (CVD)—which measures the net difference between active buying and selling—in the spot market rose from $163 million to nearly $250 million over five days. The futures CVD has been steadily increasing since May 5 and has expanded to approximately $594 million. Buyers are absorbing sell-side liquidity simultaneously in both the spot and futures markets.

Funding rates remain around 0.065%, indicating that longs are still paying to maintain their positions, but have not reached overheated levels. However, after SOL reached the $95–$96 range, the spot and volume net differential have begun to flatten, signaling a cooling of short-term momentum.

Beyond fundamentals and technicals, fundamentals are also providing catalysts.

According to CoinDesk on May 11, Solana’s core development team Anza announced that Alpenglow, the largest consensus upgrade in the network’s history, has gone live on the community test cluster. This upgrade will replace the existing Proof-of-History and TowerBFT systems with the new Votor and Rotor protocols, aiming to reduce transaction finality time from the current ~12.8 seconds to approximately 150 milliseconds—a nearly 100-fold improvement.

In last September’s community vote, 98.27% of stakers voted in favor of the proposal, with a participation rate of 52%. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko stated last week at the Consensus conference in Miami that, if testing goes smoothly, Alpenglow could launch on mainnet as early as next quarter.

Crypto KOL gum posted on X that SOL is breaking out of a four-month consolidation, but the underlying reason for this breakout goes beyond technical factors. He believes SOL is breaking out now rather than a month ago because it serves as a barometer for overall crypto market risk appetite, and the current movement is pricing in a "return to risk."

More crucially, the token distribution structure. Gum noted that during the four-month consolidation period, short-term traders and speculative capital have exited SOL, leading to a sharp decline in trading volume. Conviction holders have regained control of the token distribution. Under this distribution structure, any reasonable rebound in trading volume will propel momentum upward.

KOL Insight: Why Is SOL Set to Rise at This Level?

Note that buying pressure for SOL has begun to weaken in the $95 to $96 range, with both spot and futures CVD flattening over the past 24 hours. The Adam & Eve pattern still requires confirmation via a daily close; if SOL fails to hold above $95, it may retest the support zone at $89 to $91.

In addition, BeInCrypto previously analyzed that if May ETF inflows fail to stabilize or continue to decline, SOL could face selling pressure from exchange outflows. The rapid accumulation of high-leverage positions also means that a price retracement could trigger a cascade of liquidations, amplifying volatility. The liquidity vacuum left after the retreat of retail enthusiasm driven by meme coins is another recurring risk pattern in history.

Multiple signals from funding, derivatives, and technical analysis are simultaneously pointing in the same direction, but markets never lack precedents of counter-movements occurring precisely when signals align. The technical target of $120 is clearly visible, but every step from $95 to $120 requires genuine buying pressure to be realized.