In the past 24 hours, there has been a notable downturn in the cryptocurrency market, impacting Solana significantly. The open interest (OI) for Solana plunged to $1.62 billion, marking a 21% decline from the previous day. This decrease in OI, which represents the total unsettled value of all Solana futures contracts across exchanges, is evident in the CoinGlass data.

Simultaneously, Solana’s price also experienced a decline of 11% to 136.54, as reported by CoinMarketCap. This downward trend led to the liquidation of 36.55 million in long positions for traders, affecting the sentiment of those who were anticipating a price surge ahead of the Bitcoin halving scheduled for April 20.

The downturn was not exclusive to Solana, as other major cryptocurrencies like XRP, Dogecoin, and Cardano also saw declines of 12.12%, 10.86%, and 10.20% respectively.

Despite these challenges, there remains a sense of cautious optimism among traders. GCR Classic, a prominent trader, reappeared on social media platform X on April 14 after a period of silence, advising his 273,500 followers to consider this downturn as “a good opportunity to scale into high conviction tokens.”

In a separate optimistic prediction on April 13, crypto entrepreneur Kyle Chasse suggested on X that altcoins could potentially surge by 20-30% by the following Monday.

However, Glassnode, an on-chain analysis firm, offered a more reserved viewpoint. In an April 12 post, Glassnode highlighted that the current Bitcoin drawdowns are relatively less severe compared to previous ‘euphoria phases’, where retracements often exceeded 25%.

Furthermore, the Solana network has been grappling with operational challenges. Reports from April 9 indicated intermittent congestion issues that caused delays in several project launches. Solana developers are actively working on a solution, aiming to address these challenges by April 15.

Regarding network reliability, users have reported persistent problems related to congestion and transaction errors in recent weeks. This has led to a postponement of new projects, especially those planning token launches, until the technical issues are fully resolved.

These various factors contribute to a mixed sentiment among cryptocurrency traders and participants, balancing caution with hope for better market conditions in the future.