Solana (SOL) defended the $125 support level and bounced above $144. While market sentiment remains shaky, whale buyers are returning, showing signs of confidence.
Whale buyers are returning to Solana after the asset bounced off its lows at around $127. SOL did not dip under the $125 support level, sparking more confidence. In the past 24 hours, three whales withdrew funds from the exchange, either storing them in a new wallet or staking the tokens.
A total of three whale addresses withdrew close to $27M worth of SOL, almost immediately turning in the green. As SOL recovered as high as $147, the new purchases were also in the green.
The arrival of whales also marks a shift in SOL’s open interest. SOL positions expanded from $2.2B to over $2.7B on the last day of February, with over 74% long positions. SOL daily trading is still under $10B in 24 hours, down from previous peaks.
Whale chooses JitoSOL, taps tokens for lending liquidity
The first significant withdrawal arrived early on January 28, with funds moved to a newly created wallet. Almost immediately, the buyer staked the SOL with Jito, the leading validator and MEV block builder.
The whale minted JitoSOL tokens, and sent them to Kamino Vault 5. With this move, the whale showed confidence in the Solana ecosystem, as the success of the lending strategy hinges on the performance of SOL.
The whale’s move taps the growing value of SOL, without the need to sell and depress the price. After the recent market drawdown, the value locked in Kamino also started growing, retaining $1.95B.
Kamino Lend is one of the sources of liquidity for the Solana ecosystem, accepting multiple tokens as collateral. Currently, JitoSOL is the most widely deposited token on the DeFi lending protocol, with over $94M worth of collateral.
Whales withdraw more SOL from Binance
Two more whales withdrew SOL from Binance over the past day. One held over 106.4K SOL in a passive wallet, with no further transactions.
Another large-scale wallet also withdrew SOL from Binance 2 hot wallet but staked the tokens with Jito. The whale now holds 41.1K JitoSOL.
Earlier, a whale set off the staking trend by withdrawing 50,000 SOL. The funds were repurchased at a lower price after the whale previously took profits on SOL near its higher range at $230.
Solana whales returned at a time when Wintemute held only $8M worth of SOL, or around 55.31K. The market maker sent SOL to exchanges in the past few days, but has now focused all attention on the Ethereum ecosystem and the WETH markets on Uniswap.
Solana reinvents on-chain activity
After months of being driven by meme tokens, Solana is seeking for a new source of activity. Liquid staking is trending, as JitoSOL held its position as the biggest fee producer in the past year. Solana still carries $11.52B in stablecoins, down from $11.59B in the past few days. The role of USDC is expanding, with DeFi and DEX activity shifting to other types of tokens beyond Pump.fun.
Both Solana and JitoSOL broke the $1B fee barrier for the past 12 months, surpassing Pump.fun with $521M. Currently, the meme token platform only achieves $1M in daily fees, down from a peak above $13M.
JitoSOL fees are attempting a recovery, standing at $1.32M daily. So far, fees reflect a slowdown of the entire Solana ecosystem, and it would take more than a few whales to reawaken the chain.
Solana’s activity also fell to 3.26M active daily users, surpassed by other chains like Base and BNB Smart Chain.
Solana is yet to go through one of its large-scale unlocks on March 1, which is expected to put renewed selling pressure on the token.
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