Solana and XRP Climb as Crypto Market Cap Inches Past $4 Trillion

Solana and XRP have been on the rise as the frenzy for Ethereum begins to cool down—and analysts think this trend could continue into the end of the year.

Even as Ethereum cools down, the global crypto market cap briefly rose above $4 trillion for the first time in September, according to CoinGecko.

At the time of writing, Solana has climbed as high as $219.50 on Tuesday before retracing slightly to $216.37, which is 1.1% higher than this time yesterday, according to price aggregator CoinGecko. Meanwhile, XRP rose above $3 for the first time this month, but has since dipped to $2.99—about 0.1% higher than it was trading on Monday morning.

Users on Myriad, a prediction market owned by Decrypt parent company Dastan, recently flipped positive with 54% saying Solana will hit a new all-time high before the end of the year. Along the way, 75% of users think it’s more likely that Solana surges to $250 rather than dumping to $130.

There’s a similar level of optimism building among users for XRP. Since late last week, the bulls have outnumbered the bears—54.7% to 45.3%— in predicting that XRP will see $4 before it dips to $2.

Looking back on ETF flows from last week, digital asset manager CoinShares noted that Solana funds trading in Europe and other markets have now seen 21 straight weeks of inflows, totaling $1.1 billion so far this year. And XRP exchange-traded products in non-U.S. markets have now pulled in $1.2 billion in 2025.

Much of the enthusiasm for Solana and XRP is coming from the expectation that the SEC will soon give exchange-traded products linked to those assets the green light to trade in the U.S., Shawn Young, chief analyst at crypto exchange MEXC, told Decrypt.

Such products would allow U.S. investors to gain exposure to these crypto assets without the need to buy and store the cryptocurrencies directly, thereby avoiding the complexity of crypto exchanges and wallets.

“Solana, Dogecoin, and XRP are showing relative strength against the flat broader crypto market as speculation around near-term ETF approvals fuels outsized buying,” Young said. “These tokens have emerged as relative outperformers because ETF flows remain one of the single largest short-term catalysts for digital assets.”

He added that losses for Ethereum ETFs in recent days have created a windfall for XRP and SOL.

“While ETH ETFs have bled over $1 billion in recent days, traders appear to be rotating into assets seen as next in line for ETF traction, creating the ‘first-mover’ premium that could drive repricing heading into Q4,” Young said.

David Siemer, CEO of Wave Digital Assets, told Decrypt that investors see value in the fundamentals with Solana.

“For Solana, growth will likely be driven by its strong developer ecosystem and real-world utility in DeFi, NFTs, and payments spaces,” he said. “Its low-cost, high-throughput infrastructure has positioned it as a serious competitor to Ethereum, and continued adoption from both retail users and builders could sustain momentum into year-end.”

That’s of course been the appeal of Solana for traders and investors for years now. But recent upgrades to the network promising even faster speeds and greater stability may be starting to turn heads. Whatever the reason, prediction market traders are becoming increasingly sold on SOL: The odds that Solana hits a new all-time high this year have increased on Myriad by 20% in just the last two weeks.