This Trend Shows Why Solana Could Be a Smart Crypto Bear Market Buy

This crypto bear market has been especially rough for Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), which is down 76% from its all-time high set in late January 2025. And yet under the surface, there's a very positive trend that's been going strong since late last year.

Let's take a look and evaluate how it could help the case for buying this asset while it's priced low.

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What the data are saying here

Since spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) launched in late October 2025, every month has seen net capital inflows into the funds despite the price of the underlying coin falling, which is a pretty good trend.

Cumulative Solana ETF inflows are now $1.1 billion, with May 2026 alone pulling $115 million. The Bitwise Solana Staking ETF leads the pack, and while the monthly pace of inflows has cooled from late-2025 highs, they're still happening. And that implies something very positive.

Investors buying Solana ETFs do so through brokers and retirement accounts, which are generally avenues that do not reward quick asset flips. Inflow persistence through a multiquarter drawdown is thus an approximate proxy for a buyer base that plans to hold longer, and it suggests the dip-buying base is structural rather than tied to a one-off event that caused an obviously temporary downside.

Why deeper discounts could be smart to buy

The favorable ETF trend aside, Solana's bear case is still alive and well.

The Pump.fun class action lawsuit, which names key ecosystem organizations like Solana Labs and the Solana Foundation as co-defendants, is ongoing; the plaintiffs allege that the network worked with the meme coin launchpad Pump.fun to make its token launches unfair to investors. That could bring even more bad press to the chain, not to mention incurring settlement and legal costs that sap the ability to invest in development to promote growth.

Furthermore, Solana faces plenty of competition from the sector's heavyweights, like Ethereum, as well as newer entrants like Hyperliquid, as well as difficult macro conditions due to the crypto bear market.

Nonetheless, the odds are good that Solana's price won't keep falling forever. Based on its historical performance, if it drops a bit more from here, so that its drawdown from the last all-time high exceeds an 85% decline, there might even be an argument for it being undervalued. The coin's one prior drawdown of that scale, in late 2022, was eventually followed by a full recovery, though the bounce was slow. And that argument would be even stronger if ETF inflows continued despite the steep decline.

So keep an eye on Solana's price and its inflows. An attractive balance of risk and reward for buying it is now within sight, even if it might take a while to reach.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum, Hyperliquid, and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.