Solana, Ether and Cardano Have All Outrun Bitcoin This Week. The Money Behind Them Is Not Coming From the ETFs.

By Kresmion Research, July 4, 2026

Over the past week the major altcoins have pulled well ahead of Bitcoin, and the money moving them is coming from spot and leverage, not from the US ETFs. Solana is up about 16 percent over seven days, Ether about 13 percent and Cardano more than 30 percent, while Bitcoin has added under 5 percent. The same rotation is visible in the perpetual futures market, where open interest is building fastest in Ether and Solana. It is not visible in the ETF flow data, where the Ether and Solana products are close to flat or in net redemption. That gap is the finding: this is a crypto native rotation down the risk curve, not a Wall Street allocation.

The spot tape has left Bitcoin behind

As of about 16:00 UTC on July 4, the major alternatives to Bitcoin had broadly outrun it over the trailing seven days. Cardano led with a gain of more than 30 percent, followed by Solana at about 16 percent, Ether at about 13 percent, XRP at about 11 percent, Chainlink at about 10 percent, and Avalanche, Polkadot and Litecoin between 7 and 9 percent. Bitcoin added under 5 percent over the same window, ahead of only a couple of the largest coins such as BNB at about 3 percent.

This is breadth, not a single coin having a moment. When most of the large caps move together and the market leader lags, the tape is describing a rotation rather than an idiosyncratic story. It is also a seven day phenomenon. On the holiday session itself trading is thin and the daily moves are muted, with Solana up only about 1 percent on the day. The seven day figures are the signal here, not the last twenty four hours.

The leverage moved with the price

The rotation shows up a second time, independently, in the derivatives market. Kresmion aggregates perpetual futures open interest and funding across four venues. Over the three days into July 4, open interest rose about 36 percent in Ether, from roughly 6.1 billion dollars to 8.3 billion, and about 30 percent in Solana, from about 1.7 billion to 2.2 billion. Bitcoin open interest also rose, by about 22 percent to 14.4 billion dollars, so leverage is building across the whole complex. It is simply building faster in the coins that are leading.

The funding data carries the more counterintuitive point. Funding is the periodic payment that perpetual longs make to shorts when demand to be long runs hot, so a higher rate marks a more crowded and more expensive long. Of the majors, Bitcoin longs are paying the most, an eight hour rate near 0.009 percent that annualizes to roughly 10 percent. The alts leading the tape, Ether and Solana, are being carried higher on lighter funding, on the order of half to two thirds of Bitcoin's rate, which points to demand that is more spot driven than pure leverage. In short, the most expensive and most crowded long in the complex is also its weakest performer. The one caveat is Cardano, the single biggest mover: its funding is pinned at the venue cap of 0.01 percent, which marks it as the frothiest and most leverage driven part of the move.

The ETFs are not the source of the bid

For most of the past year the crypto story has been an ETF story. That is what makes this week unusual. The US spot funds are not where this bid is coming from.

Across the five sessions through July 2, the Ether ETFs took in only about 36 million dollars net, a rounding error against a 13 percent move in the underlying. The Solana funds were net redeemers over late June and into July, shedding about 41 million dollars even as Solana rose 16 percent. Bitcoin's ETFs, by far the largest in the group, bled through late June in what CoinDesk reported as a record monthly outflow of 4.06 billion dollars, before a single green day of 221.8 million dollars on July 2 (CoinDesk). None of the three fund complexes is supplying the fuel for an alt led advance. The demand is coming from somewhere the ETF tape cannot see: spot exchanges and perpetual futures. Kresmion followed the Ether fund picture into the next week, when a July 8 note found that a full week of Ether ETF inflows came almost entirely from one issuer, even as large wallets sent the most Ether to exchanges in a month.

How to read it: rotation out of a crowded Bitcoin long

Put the three books together and a familiar late cycle pattern appears. Bitcoin has led for a long time and the positioning behind it is stretched. In the regulated futures market, CFTC data through June 23 showed speculators net long Bitcoin at about 17 percent of open interest, a reading roughly 2.5 standard deviations above its one year mean and the fourth consecutive week at that extreme. That is a crowded, expensive long. When the leader is this crowded and this costly to hold, advances tend to broaden, and capital moves down the risk curve into higher beta names that have lagged. The tell that this is genuine rotation rather than pure froth is that the leaders, Solana and Ether, are rising on lighter funding than Bitcoin, which points to spot demand rather than leverage alone.

Open source coverage lines up with the same read. The CoinMarketCap Altcoin Season Index had climbed back toward the high 40s, and reporting in early July described the ETF flow picture splitting by asset, with Ether products drawing inflows while Bitcoin bled, framed as an asset specific rotation rather than a broad exit (NewsBTC). This is happening against the backdrop of the best quarter for US equities since 2020 and a hawkish Federal Reserve under Kevin Warsh, with the market still pricing no rate cuts in 2026. One note for the days ahead: the July 6 CFTC report, delayed from its usual Friday by the Independence Day holiday, will be the first look at whether that crowded Bitcoin futures long is starting to unwind.

What this note is not saying

This is an observation about relative performance and positioning, not advice and not a forecast. A seven day rotation is not a regime, and the same open interest that confirms the move also warns about it: leverage is rising across every major coin, including Bitcoin, and a market this crowded on the long side can reverse quickly and violently. Funding pinned at the venue cap in Cardano is a specific caution flag on the frothiest name. The ETF flow figures are small sample, and the reported assets behind these funds are stale, so Kresmion reads only the direction of daily flows, never the levels. What would change the read is straightforward and observable: the July 6 CFTC data confirming or denying that Bitcoin's futures long is unwinding, alt funding climbing to the cap across the board, or ETF flows finally turning decisively toward the alts, which would make this a Wall Street story after all.

Frequently asked questions

Which coins actually outperformed Bitcoin this week?

As of July 4, the major coins Kresmion tracks had broadly beaten Bitcoin's gain of under 5 percent over seven days: Cardano at more than 30 percent, Solana about 16 percent, Ether about 13 percent, XRP and Chainlink around 10 to 11 percent, and Avalanche, Polkadot and Litecoin between 7 and 9 percent. The figures are from Kresmion's spot price feed sourced from Binance.

If the ETFs are not driving the alt move, what is?

The demand shows up in two markets that the ETF flow data does not capture: spot exchanges, where the altcoins are simply rising more than Bitcoin, and perpetual futures, where open interest grew about 36 percent in Ether and 30 percent in Solana over three days versus 22 percent in Bitcoin. The US Ether and Solana ETFs were close to flat or in net redemption over the same stretch.

Why does Bitcoin funding being the highest matter?

Positive funding means perpetual longs are paying shorts, so a higher rate signals a more crowded and more expensive long. Bitcoin's funding near 10 percent annualized is the highest of the majors, yet Bitcoin is the weakest seven day performer of the group. That combination, alongside a CFTC net long extreme in Bitcoin futures, is what suggests capital is rotating out of a crowded Bitcoin position and into the lagging alts.

Is this a durable trend or a short term move?

It is a seven day rotation, and this note treats it as exactly that. Rising open interest across the entire complex means leverage is elevated everywhere, which makes crowded positioning fragile. The next CFTC positioning report, delayed to July 6 by the holiday, and the path of alt funding rates are the observable signals for whether the rotation extends or reverses.