This week in coins: Bitcoin price cools, Solana rises on ETFs, and BODEN tanks amid controversy

The crypto market's bearish slide in June has started to show signs of recovery this week, as bullish news has fueled investor interest in various altcoins.

Chief among these coins is Solana (SOL) – one of the largest cryptocurrencies after Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

The latter assets fell another 5% and 3% respectively last week, in another old-school Bitcoin wave that decided to take profits amid the market. In contrast, SOL rose an impressive 6 percent this week to $142, VanEyck said at U.S.-based Solana F.B.

VanEck's logic was simple: If regulators consider Ethereum an ETF-worthy commodity, Solana also ticks all the necessary boxes. It's a bullish thesis for altcoin investors eager to get a taste of the Wall Street boom that bitcoin ETFs enjoyed earlier this year. And 21Shares tracked its own Solana ETF filing on Friday, continuing the rumble.

In the same euphoria, alternative runner-up modern contract platforms including Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX) and Polkadot (DOT) also rose roughly 5.5%, 11% and 7% respectively.

Meanwhile, Telegram-linked Toncoin (Ton) retook some of its gains earlier this month after a sharp correction last week, rising more than 5% in the past seven days. It has now successfully overtaken Dogecoin as the 9th largest crypto by market cap.

Another coin to see market-defying gains this week is Caspa (KAS), the top 25 crypto that exploded 23 percent in market value this week after Marathon Digital announced it was producing a cryptocurrency. The miner has now produced $15 million worth of KAS as of September 2023, with its own ASICs generating 95% gross profit in some cases from its efforts.

BLAST was the main focus of traders this week, as the token tied to Ethereum's Layer-2 network finally launched alongside a massive airdrop that put $354 million into users' wallets – despite initial disappointment among crypto Twitterers at the prospect of bigger wallets for early supporters. Time to discuss.

Still, the airdrop enriched many users, and BLAST began to bounce back after achieving significant sales. It is currently down 29% from this week's high, at around $0.021, giving it a market cap of around $360 million.

Perhaps the most volatile this week, however, were political meme coins. Following what was widely seen as a disappointing debate performance from President Joe Biden, the Solana-based “Jeo Boden” (BODEN) token surged 52% in one day—on the sidelines of Biden’s re-election chances, at least among crypto bettors.

Donald Trump, who was seen as the winner of the debate by many crypto advocates, saw his ticker “Doland Tremp” (TREMP) drop from late Thursday into Friday, despite a 13 percent gain for the week.

Edited by Andrew Hayward.