Solana (SOL) Struggles to Stay Above $80 as Transactions Decline for 6th Week

Solana (SOL) is currently the worst-performing token in the top 5 as it has failed to keep up with Ethereum’s positive performance during the latest rally.

This altcoin has recovered above $80, but the performance has lagged that of its peer by nearly 14% in the past 30 days, booking an 11.8% loss during that period compared to a 1.5% gain by ETH.

Trading volumes remain a bit high, sitting above $5 billion and accounting for 11% of the token’s circulating market cap.

Sentiment Improves as Oil Retreats Near $90

Oil prices have been steadily dropping in the past week, as President Donald Trump has taken more aggressive measures to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The head of state said today that the Iran war should be over very soon.

“I think it’s close to over, I view it as very close to over. … If I pulled up stakes right now it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country, and we’re not finished,” Trump said earlier during an interview with Fox.

Crude prices are sitting slightly above $90 this morning, and that could give the markets a necessary breather after weeks of high volatility.

Transaction Volumes Tank For a Sixth Week

Market sentiment in the crypto space has improved dramatically in the past two months, with the Fear and Greed Index stepping out of Extreme Fear and rising to 56 as of today, meaning that sentiment is now in “Neutral” territory.

As we have mentioned in previous predictions, whenever sentiment turns around like this, it typically indicates that the price of crypto assets has found a short-term bottom.

That said, the situation for Solana (SOL) remains dire, as this altcoin has struggled to keep up with its peers. During the latest bullish cycle, we saw both Ethereum and BNB (BNB) make new all-time highs, while SOL failed to achieve a similar feat.

On-chain data from Artemis shows that transaction volumes within the Solana blockchain have been dropping for six weeks in a row, retreating from a recent peak of 910 million during the first week of March to 680 million as of last week.

Agentic Payments Will Not Yet Drive Higher Demand to SOL

The market believes that Solana should play a key role in the “agentic economy”, with reports pointing to its high transaction processing speeds and low costs as competitive advantages to Ethereum.

Solana has already built the railroads required to support the so-called x402 protocol, which is a tool that will allow AI agents to make internet payments seamlessly with the help of blockchain technology to speed up settlements.

That said, this technology is still in its early days and needs to mature a lot to reach widespread adoption levels.

For the time being, the daily chart shows that Solana remains in consolidation mode. This is a stark contrast to what we see in ETH’s price chart, which recently broke out of its consolidation pattern.

The key support to watch in the next few days would be the $80 level, as a drop below this mark could mean that buying interest for SOL remains weak.

Meanwhile, if we get a bullish breakout above $90, the odds favor a push toward $120 as part of what we categorize as a normal “reversion to the mean” move inside of what is still a bearish cycle.