Solana: Here’s why SOL’s slip below $100 signals a textbook bear trap

Every support break keeps chipping away at investor patience.

From a structural view, bulls need to step in and defend key levels to slow the bleeding.

However, at the current market positioning, bears clearly hold control, evident in the 90%+ long-side liquidity sweeps.

Solana [SOL] reflects this move. Four red candles have pushed SOL below key support, leaving HODLers underwater and raising the risk of further downside as fading patience turns unrealized losses into realized selling.

Source: TradingView (SOL/USDT)

The result? A liquidation cascade.

When bulls failed to defend the $100 level on the 2nd of February, a long squeeze wiped nearly $100 million in positions over the next three days, pulling SOL back toward the Q1 2024 level.

In short, SOL’s bearish structure is being reinforced by liquidity sweeps and repeated support breaks, both of which erode FOMO and trigger forced exits. Against this setup, positioning for downside makes clear strategic sense.

Backing this momentum, Solana’s rising Open Interest (OI), combined with negative funding, showed that shorts were actively stacking and capitalizing on the volatility, while longing into persistent FUD remains a high-risk bet.

Naturally, the key question now: Is Solana at risk of losing another major support and triggering deeper capitulation, or are shorts missing critical signals, setting up a classic bear trap if the market flips back to risk-on?

Solana tests support while reversal odds quietly grow

No doubt, Solana’s technical positioning was sitting at a key inflection point. 

With market FUD still lingering, the $90 support zone remains vulnerable, especially as SOL ranks among the weakest high-cap performers this year, down roughly 28% and leaving many long-term holders underwater.

And yet, underlying network activity continues to hold up.

Daily Transactions have pushed to an all-time high, and OnChain Lens flagged a whale withdrawing 100k SOL from Bybit and moving it into staking.

Source: Blockworks

As the chart showed, Solana’s Staking Rate continued to hold above 68%, despite the ongoing FUD, signaling reduced liquid supply in the market, an environment that can amplify upside if market sentiment turns risk-on.

Taken together, this shows broader market weakness is driving Solana’s latest dump rather than any real crack in fundamentals.

In other words, the softness looks largely tied to aggressive short positioning.

According to AMBCrypto, that dynamic matters. 

When shorts crowd in while supply stays locked, the setup often shifts toward squeeze conditions once capital rotates back in, turning Solana’s current pullback into a classic bear-trap reversal.

Final Thoughts

• Repeated support breaks, long-side liquidity sweeps, and fading investor patience have pushed SOL below $100, raising the risk of further downside.
• Despite the dump, strong staking rates, rising network activity, and whale positioning suggest the pullback may be driven by shorts, setting the stage for a possible bear trap.