2025 Crypto Market Main Trend: The Battle of New and Old Orders between ETH and SOL

In 2021, the competition for Layer 1, in 2024, the Meme carnival, where will the market's main line head in 2025? The answer is being clearly revealed by mainstream capital: as stablecoins are officially incorporated into the U.S. regulatory framework, a new multidimensional financial narrative that integrates "stablecoin × RWA × ETF × DeFi" is rising.

In this profound evolution of cross-chain finance, the core focus is no longer on Bitcoin or Meme coins, but rather on the old and new order struggle between Ethereum and Solana. The two public chains have essential differences in technical architecture, compliance strategies, scalability paths, ecological construction models, and even value foundations.

Currently, this competition that will determine the future landscape has entered a critical stage where capital is being fiercely wagered with real money.

Capital Betting Preference: From "BTC Faith" to "ETH/SOL Either One"

Unlike the previous crypto bull markets driven by macro monetary factors with widespread rises and falls, the market in 2025 shows a clear structural differentiation. Top projects are no longer rising in sync, and funds are concentrating on selected battlefields, revealing a survival of the fittest scenario.

The most intuitive signal comes from the changes in institutional buying strategies:

Regarding ETH: Several publicly listed companies in the United States have begun to establish large-scale Ethereum asset vaults.

• On July 22, a certain company announced an increase in its digital asset treasury authorization to $250 million, and added 8,351 ETH, clearly stating its goal to "allocate quality Ethereum ecosystem assets to achieve stablecoin yields".
• Another company accumulated an additional 19,084 ETH this month, bringing the total holdings to 340,000, with a market value exceeding 1.2 billion USD;
• A new wallet address has purchased over 106,000 ETH in the past 4 days, worth nearly 400 million dollars.
• A certain company announced that it will complete its reverse listing plan with 400,000 ETH and has received over $1.5 billion in financing support from several top institutions, aiming to become the "largest public ETH production company".

On the SOL side: the buying scale is equally astonishing and has a more explosive speculative nature.

• A listed company announced an increase in its holdings of 141,383 SOL, bringing its total holdings close to 1 million.
• A certain SOL treasury company announced the purchase of 100,000 SOL for $17.7 million, bringing the total holdings to 1.82 million, with unrealized gains exceeding $58 million;
• According to data from the data platform, PENGU has reached a market cap of $2.785 billion, surpassing BONK('s $1.2701 billion), becoming the largest market cap Meme coin in the Solana ecosystem.

These phenomena indicate that ETH and SOL have become the preferred underlying assets for institutional multi-asset allocation. However, the investment logic of the two shows significant differences: ETH is used as "on-chain government bonds + quality asset underlying + institutional targets for spot ETF access"; SOL is being shaped as "high-performance consumer application chain + the main battlefield of the new Meme economy."

Two betting methods represent expectations for the future two main lines of the crypto market: ETH is the financial engine taken over by the system, while SOL is the speculative track of capital offensive betting.

ETH: The Misunderstood Institutional Axis, Fulfilling the Mission of Financial Assets

In the past two years, the Ethereum narrative once fell into doubts of "running in place." From the lack of significant improvement in staking returns after the merge, to the fragmentation of the Layer 2 ecosystem, high Gas fees, and some projects actively relocating, market expectations for ETH once plummeted to a low point.

But the reality is: ETH has never left the stage, but has instead become the core asset most deeply bound to institutional narratives. Its underlying support lies in the deep institutional synergy of three dimensions:

Establishment of RWA core hub status

The total amount of RWA issued on the chain currently exceeds 4 billion USD, with over 70% occurring on the Ethereum mainnet and its L2 networks. The core products of several institutions are all linked to ETH as a key reference layer or liquidity medium (, such as WETH ). The larger the scale of RWA, the more indispensable ETH becomes.

Spot ETF and stablecoin policy anchor assets

After the stablecoin bill was passed, stablecoin issuers clearly stated that "on-chain reserve transparency" and "short-term U.S. Treasury pledge structure" are core demands. In the latest asset allocation of a certain company, the proportion of WETH has risen to 6.7%. At the same time, multiple institutions are accelerating the preparation of Ethereum spot ETF products. Following BTC, ETH is highly likely to become the next ETF focus.

On-chain lock-up and developer ecosystem still hold absolute advantages.

As of July 22, the total TVL of the Ethereum mainnet and L2 networks reached 110 billion USD, accounting for 61% of the global crypto TVL. The monthly active developers on ETH remain stable at over 50,000, which is four times that of Solana and more than eight times that of other L1s. This means that, regardless of how market narratives change, ETH, as the "main financial layer" for on-chain asset governance, value accumulation, and liquidity distribution, has a foundation and ecological stickiness that is difficult to shake in the short term.

In terms of price, ETH has approached the $4000 mark. With BTC breaking through and stabilizing above $120,000, the process of ETH reigniting market expectations is not about creating a new story, but rather about rediscovering old values.

SOL: The On-Chain Native Consumption Power and the Capital Logic Behind Its Explosive Growth

Compared to Ethereum's positioning as a "financial hub", Solana is more like a consumption infrastructure in high-frequency scenarios. Its narrative has successfully transformed from "the optimally parametered chain" to "a native on-chain blockbuster manufacturer", and it will迎来结构性突破 in 2024-2025.

the local market of MemeCoin, rather than the secondary transfer market

In this round of "crypto consumer goods" craze, the number and liquidity of MemeCoins emerging on the Solana chain have reached historic highs. Market data shows that as of July 22, the Meme project with the highest market capitalization on Solana, BONK, reached $2.67 billion, followed closely by PENGU(23.2 billion) and TRUMP(2.2 billion), with the combined market capitalization of the three exceeding Dogecoin. With Solana's extremely low Gas fees and high TPS, these projects have formed a rapid closed loop of "low-cost experiments → community-driven FOMO → high-frequency trading stimulation." On Solana, Meme has become the native consumer behavior of on-chain users.

Capital bets on "on-chain activity" rather than technical route

The large-scale increase in holdings by several listed companies indicates that mainstream capital is viewing SOL as a "tradeable asset + user growth indicator + narrative carrier" trinity. Their focus is on ecological activity, trading depth, and the consumption attributes of "on-chain stories," rather than technical details.

Ecological products move from hot-selling to "basic consumption level"

From the experience of Jupiter's DEX, the Backpack mobile wallet, to the Solana phone and the upcoming Solana App Store, the entire ecosystem is trying to build a closed loop more aligned with Web2 user habits. On-chain native consumption ( includes Meme, DePIN, mini-games, community points, and social media ) has become Solana's "local life", creating natural consumption scenarios for SOL. Although its TVL is only 12% of Ethereum's, the transaction frequency, per capita interaction volume, and total Gas consumption on the Solana chain have significantly surpassed other traditional L1s. It resembles a "daily active entry point" for crypto natives, rather than a purely financial "pricing anchor".

Price Signal: Breakthrough $200, Entering High Volatility Main Uptrend

As BTC stabilizes at $120,000 and ETH aims for $4,000, SOL has recently also returned above $200. High volatility accompanied by high heat is itself a precursor to new narratives brewing and major players adjusting their positions. What we are witnessing is not speculative frenzy, but an increasingly shorter feedback loop between "on-chain behavior - price reaction."

This is a model driven by consumption data to predict trading expectations, ETH cannot do it, SOL has become the paradigm.

Whale Games and Policy Catalysts: Who Can Take on the Bullets of Major Position Shifts?

The application of technology determines the "narrative potential" of public chains, while funding and policies determine their "transaction capacity"—especially when BTC breaks through $120,000 and the market enters a major uptrend, identifying the "funding aggregation zone" for the next phase is crucial.

On-chain data shows that since Q2 2025, the "on-chain accumulation" strategies of the three major institutions have diverged significantly: one institution continuously increased its holdings of ETH( by a total of 172,000 pieces, approximately $640 million), clearly for the construction of its spot ETH ETF base position from May to July; another institution has been frequently reallocating on the Solana chain since June, focusing on BONK, PENGU, and Jupiter, and has cumulatively increased its holdings of SOL by nearly 280,000 pieces through multiple addresses; two listed companies have continued to announce increases in SOL holdings, each forming a position exceeding one million pieces( with a total market value of nearly $500 million), realizing considerable floating profits.

This is not a simple "win or lose" bet, but rather a market stratification: ETH is a "structural asset allocation," and SOL is a "short-cycle volatility tool."

Differentiated policy direction promotes "dual-line growth". On July 19, the first federal regulatory framework for stablecoins in the U.S. was implemented, coupled with multiple institutions submitting spot ETH ETF documents, making the path for "ETH to be included in the compliance framework" increasingly clear. At the same time, the Solana team is collaborating with several exchanges to advance the "compliance issuance of consumer assets" experiment. For example, a certain exchange launched a dedicated Launchpad for Solana on-chain assets in July and introduced a light KYC mechanism for the issuance process of Meme coins.

This "bi-directional compliance" means that policy dividends are being distributed in a differentiated manner according to application scenarios, capital attributes, and risk preferences: ETH continues to attract traditional capital, while SOL has become a compliance testing ground for young users and consumption scenarios.

Short-term policy expectations: ETH benefits more significantly, while SOL is less constrained. Although ETH is at the forefront of policy dividends in terms of ETFs and RWA, it also faces multiple hurdles from regulators regarding the identification of securities attributes and staking classifications. The SOL ecosystem, due to its limited involvement in centralized issuance and complex staking channels, allows its tokens and applications to more easily enter the regulatory "gray safe zone." This results in a more stable but longer upward path for ETH, while SOL experiences a steeper and more volatile upward trajectory.

Who Defines the Future? Hedge Allocation, Not Either-Or

From the market path after BTC broke through 120,000 USD, the differences between ETH and SOL are no longer a linear question of "who replaces whom", but a distributed answer to "who defines the future in what cycle".

ETH is the main character of the medium to long-term narrative under structural support.

With the support of the stablecoin bill, the path for ETH to be incorporated into the financial compliance system is clear. Whether it is the promotion of spot ETFs or its positioning as the "clearing and settlement layer" in the RWA model, it has become the "core asset" for Wall Street to allocate blockchain assets.

From the positioning logic of several large institutions, ETH is evolving from a "Gas Token" to a "fundamental financial platform," with its valuation anchor shifting from on-chain activity to government bond yield models and Staking rates. The way ETH wins is not through explosive growth, but through accumulation.

SOL is a short-term detonator in structural cracks.

Compared to the stability of ETH, SOL has become the main battleground for capital gaming in high-frequency trading, Meme coin narratives, terminal applications, and native consumer goods like the Saga phone (. From BONK to PENGU, and then to JUP's governance experiments, the Solana chain has built a "native narrative market" with high liquidity and high penetration.

In addition, based on the actual on-chain performance: SOL's TPS, cost, and terminal response speed continue to lead; the independence of the SVM ecosystem also frees it from the predicament of internal competition and redundant construction within the EVM ecosystem.

More importantly, SOL is one of the few "capable of absorbing funds and willing to be highly volatile" narrative niches. After BTC initiates the main upward wave, it becomes a core short-term option for capturing "rapid responses to fund rotations."

Therefore, this is not a "multiple-choice question", but a "cyclic game question":.

For medium to long-term funds that are optimistic about institutional reform and betting on the structured entry of traditional capital, ETH is the first choice. For short-cycle participants who wish to capture opportunities in capital rotation and narrative explosion, SOL offers a more dynamic Beta exposure.

In narrative and system, wave