Santiment: Solana perpetuals exceed $20 billion in weekly volume

Santiment said in an X post published within the last 48 hours that crypto conversation on the platform was being led by Bitcoin custody and exchange-traded fund discussion, Ethereum flow tracking, and a surge in Solana perpetuals activity. The analytics firm said Solana perpetual volume had topped $20 billion on a weekly basis, while XRP was also drawing debate over its role relative to stablecoins. Independent crypto coverage published this week also reported that Solana-based perpetual decentralized exchanges had crossed the $20 billion weekly mark for the first time. ### What exactly did Santiment say was driving crypto chatter? Santiment’s post said Bitcoin custody and ETF-related discussion were among the leading topics in crypto discourse on X, alongside Ethereum flows and Solana perpetual volume. The post also flagged debate around XRP and whether traders were treating it as a payments asset, a liquidity rail, or something closer to a stablecoin substitute in market conversation. (x.com) The social-data framing matters because Santiment was not presenting a market forecast in that post. The firm was describing what users were discussing at that moment, and it grouped the conversation around institutional Bitcoin access, Ethereum fund-flow monitoring, Solana derivatives activity, and XRP’s function in the market. ### What does “Solana perpetuals” mean in this context? Perpetuals are derivatives contracts that let traders take leveraged long or short positions without a fixed expiry date. (x.com) In this case, the references were to perpetual futures trading on Solana-based decentralized exchanges rather than spot trading in the SOL token itself. Crypto outlets reporting on the same move said the milestone referred to aggregate weekly volume across Solana-based perpetual DEXs. (x.com) Binance Square, citing NS3 data, said the ecosystem’s weekly trading volume had surpassed $20 billion, while CoinNess and other reports said daily volume on May 18 reached about $5.78 billion. ### Where did the $20 billion figure come from? Reports published on May 19 and May 20 tied the $20 billion number to on-chain derivatives data covering Solana-based perpetual exchanges. (financefeeds.com) Several of those reports said GMTrade was the largest contributor during the surge, with roughly $4.9 billion in 24-hour volume during the period cited. Because Santiment’s X post did not appear to include a full methodology in the visible source returned here, the clearest external confirmation comes from those contemporaneous market reports. (binance.com) They consistently described the same threshold — more than $20 billion in weekly Solana perp DEX volume — as a first-time record for the network’s derivatives ecosystem. ### Why were Bitcoin custody and ETF flows in the same conversation? (binance.com) Bitcoin ETF and custody discussion has remained a central crypto topic because fund flows are widely watched as a proxy for institutional demand. Current ETF trackers, including CoinGlass, show active monitoring of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum products, and some trackers now also list XRP and Solana products or related flow dashboards. Santiment grouped those topics together with Ethereum flows and Solana perps because they were all appearing in the same social-discourse window on X. (binance.com) That does not mean the assets were moving for the same reason, but it does show traders were discussing institutional access, fund flows, and leveraged on-chain trading at the same time. ### What should readers watch next? The next concrete checkpoint is whether Solana-based perpetual volume stays above the $20 billion weekly threshold in subsequent data updates. (coinglass.com) Santiment’s post is still the primary reference for the social-discourse snapshot, while follow-up confirmation is likely to come from on-chain dashboards and market-data services tracking Solana perp DEX volume, ETF flows, and daily derivatives turnover in the days ahead. (x.com)