“Bitwise points to the right mix of factors, suggesting Solana may be ready to surge.”

Bitwise Flags Solana as the Next Big Crypto Trade

Solana has already delivered a 24% gain over the past month, but Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan says the move may just be the beginning.

Hougan argues that the same factors that powered Bitcoin and Ethereum higher — exchange-traded product inflows and corporate treasury allocations — are now converging around Solana. “That recipe pushed Bitcoin from $40,000 to over $110,000 and sent Ethereum soaring,” he noted. “The same setup is here for SOL.”

Seven issuers, including Bitwise, Fidelity, VanEck, and Grayscale, are awaiting SEC rulings on spot Solana ETPs, with decisions due Oct. 10. Approvals would give both retail and institutional investors an easy entry point into Solana exposure.

On the corporate side, Forward Industries (FORD) raised $1.65 billion from major crypto funds such as Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital, with plans to buy and stake SOL as a balance sheet asset. The effort is led by Multicoin’s Kyle Samani, who Hougan compared to high-profile evangelists like Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy.

Solana’s value proposition centers on speed and scale. Unlike Ethereum, it operates on a single chain and will soon cut transaction finality from 12 seconds to 150 milliseconds, with fees staying under one cent. While detractors warn the model leans toward centralization, Hougan pointed to Solana’s growth: it now ranks third in stablecoin liquidity, fourth in tokenized assets, and has seen asset volumes climb 140% this year.

At $116 billion in market cap, Solana is far smaller than Bitcoin’s $2.2 trillion or Ethereum’s $519 billion, meaning new capital can have an outsized effect. Hougan emphasized that Forward’s $1.65 billion purchase is the equivalent of a $33 billion injection into Bitcoin.

“The ingredients are all there,” Hougan wrote. “Solana deserves a close watch.”