SOL Futures Are More Popular Than Ever as U.S. Inflation Report Looms

The crypto market is down today, signaling risk aversion ahead of the U.S. core PCE inflation data release, which could influence the Federal Reserve’s path on interest-rate cuts.

The CoinDesk 20 Index, a measure of the broad market, has dropped 3.6% in the past 24 hours, with all but one member lower over that period.

According to analysts at Bitunix , a hotter-than-expected figure could prompt the Fed to adopt a one-and-done stance following the expected rate cut at the September meeting.

“For BTC, watch whether $114.5K flips into support, or if a retest of $107.6K support confirms market resilience,” the exchange told CoinDesk in an email.

Derivatives Positioning

• Open interest (OI) in futures tied to the top 20 coins, excluding SOL, has decreased in the past 24 hours, indicating broad-based capital outflows.
• SOL’s open interest, however, hit a record high 63.84 million, alongside a rally in the token’s price to $217, a level last seen in February.
• The eight-hour funding rates for ether, tron and BNB flipped slightly negative, indicating a bias for bearish bets on a drop in prices. Funding rates for other major tokens were steady at around zero, indicating neutral sentiment.
• OI in the CME bitcoin futures slipped to 135.72K BTC, the lowest since April, while ether OI remained elevated at record highs near 2.10 million ETH. The divergence suggests a continued preference among investors for ETH over BTC.
• On Deribit, downside bias in BTC options has strengthened across all tenors, with puts trading at a five volatility premium to calls at the front end. ETH options display similar dynamics, marking a shift from bullish positioning early this week.
• On Paradigm, block flows featured call selling and put rolling strategies in BTC and ETH. Market maker Wintermute pointed to demand for call spreads in the December expiry BTC options.

Token Talk

• Solana (SOL) posted a 44% drop in second-quarter application revenue, sliding to to $576.4 million from $1 billion in the first quarter even as its DeFi sector expanded, according to Messari.
• The downturn reflects weaker profitability across key decentralized apps. Pump.fun (PUMP) still led with $156.9 million, but was still down 44% as memecoin frenzy cooled.
• Axiom was the outlier, surging 641% to $126.6 million, showing how fast protocol-specific growth can offset broader ecosystem weakness. Jupiter JUP$0.5175 earned $66.4 million (–16%), while Phantom and Photon were hit hardest with declines of 65% and 72%, respectively.
• Despite revenue losses, DeFi TVL on Solana climbed 30% to $8.6 billion in the quarter and has since crossed $11 billion, cementing the chain as the largest DeFi network behind Ethereum.
• Kamino Finance drove TVL growth, up 34% to $2.1 billion after introducing Kamino Lend V2, which attracted $200 million in deposits and $80 million in loans within three weeks. Kamino now controls 25% of Solana’s market share.
• Raydium staged a strong comeback, rising 54% to $1.8 billion in TVL, reclaiming second place from Jupiter. It now commands 21% share versus Jupiter’s 19%.
• Trading activity, however, told a different story: Average daily spot DEX volume fell 45% to $2.5 billion, reflecting a fading of the memecoin momentum that had fueled the previous quarter’s records.