Dogecoin, Solana, Ethereum Drive Crypto Markets Higher as Bitcoin Stays Flat

The crypto markets started the new week in the green, with altcoins leading the charge Monday morning.

Dogecoin was the best performer among the 10 biggest digital assets by market capitalization, up 3.4% at the time of writing.

The meme coin’s performance could be linked to the news that billionaire Dogecoin fan Elon Musk is establishing a new political party, dubbed “The America Party,” which will aim to provide an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.

In a late-night tweet session, the world’s richest man confirmed that his new platform will embrace Bitcoin because “fiat is hopeless,” though he failed to mention Dogecoin. 

Elon Musk and Dogecoin

Musk and the crypto world have a long and complicated relationship, with the billionaire’s affinity for Dogecoin a recurring theme.

Just last year, he proposed and led the “Department of Government Efficiency,” whose name formed a backronym of Dogecoin’s DOGE ticker.

Monday’s market moves may indicate traders are hopeful that there will be a place for Dogecoin in Musk’s political party—or at the very least, that he’ll post about it again. 

Solana pops following staking ETF launch

Other strong performers among major altcoins include Solana and Ethereum, which have risen by 3.1% and 1.9% respectively at time of publication.

Wednesday saw an exchange-traded fund offering exposure to Solana launch for the first time in the U.S.—with a REX Shares and Osprey Funds spokesperson telling Decrypt it generated $12 million in inflows on day one.

Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas noted it had a “healthy start to trading” that put the fund within the top 1% of new launches.

However, the Securities and Exchange Commission is yet to decide on whether to give the green light to ETFs tracking the spot price of SOL and other altcoins, which could potentially drive billions of dollars of institutional investment. 

Altcoins are considerably outperforming Bitcoin at time of publication, with the alpha crypto relatively flat, rising just 0.5% over the past 24 hours.