Solana Surges While Rest of Crypto Majors Start Week Flat

Crypto markets traded flat on Monday morning, following a strong performance last week driven by positive Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) inflows and macroeconomic indicators. Solana popped as network metrics climb.

Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $67,698, up 1.5% in the last 24 hours. Ether (ETH) is up 2% to $3,125, while Solana (SOL) rose by nearly 6%, according to CoinGecko data.

Investors are sitting on the sidelines after a strong week, dominated by macroeconomic developments, according to Ryze Labs. .

April’s U.S. CPI print was cooler than expected, coming in at 0.3% month-on-month compared to the market expectation of 0.4%.

The slower-than-expected inflation rate “has quelled rumors of a potential rate hike and paves the way for Powell to consider a rate cut in the coming months.”

Michael Van de Poppe, CEO of MN Trading, believes Bitcoin is likely to continue moving within its current range, without significant volatility.

“I'd rather expect consolidation and slow upwards movements towards the all-time high. The thesis remains the same: Altcoins to outperform in between,” he wrote on X.

Data from CryptoQuant indicates that exchange BTC reserves have drastically declined to 1,929,696 BTC as of May 19. This marks a more than 50% decrease from July 2021, which could suggest a reduction in the liquid supply of Bitcoin, implying that investors are moving their holdings off exchanges for long term storage.

The exception is Solana, which is up by the most among blockchains with market capitalizations of over $1 billion, after Sui. The Solana network has been on a tear driven by the meme coin craze, with over 20,000 tokens being created on Solana each day, according to data compiled by Step Finance.

Bitcoin Rally

According to Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research, Bitcoin could rally only if it breaks the resistance levels of $67,500.

“A breakthrough above $67,500 could potentially lead to new all-time highs, a scenario that our Bitcoin ETF model predicts,” he wrote in a note.

Data from CoinGlass shows that in the past 24 hours, 48,218 traders were liquidated, with total liquidations amounting to $108.08 million. The largest single liquidation order occurred on OKX, involving an ETH-USD swap valued at $2.91 million.

In other news, Michael Sonnenshein is stepping down as the CEO of Grayscale Investments LLC. He will be replaced by Peter Mintzberg, a former Goldman Sachs executive, effective August 15.

Crypto Stocks Surge

Crypto stocks saw some gains on Monday. Coinbase is up 0.45%, while MicroStrategy is up 0.98%, reaching $1,600 a share.

U.S. stocks showed little change, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 0.1%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite added 0.3% and 0.7%, respectively.

Investors are awaiting the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s April 30 to May 1 meeting, due May 22.