Solana Is Up 36% in a Month, ETH Is Up 29%, XRP Is Up 35% and Bitcoin Is Up Only 20%. Which Gain Actually Holds?

Four major cryptocurrencies all posted double-digit gains over the past month, but strong rallies built on shaky foundations tend to collapse just as fast. The catalyst driving each one looks very different, and at least two face high-stakes tests in…

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) trades at $78,000 as of September 7, 2026, XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) at $1.40, Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) around $2,490, and Solana (CRYPTO:SOL) at $103. Over the past 30 days, Bitcoin gained 20.98%, XRP rose 36.09%, Ethereum gained 29.78%, and Solana climbed 36.02%.

Solana, XRP, Bitcoin, and Ethereum have all posted strong gains over the past month, with Solana leading the group. However, all four remain negative year-to-date and are also down over the past 12 months. So which of these gains is most likely to hold?

Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum and Solana Across Four Windows

These four cryptocurrencies have delivered mixed performances across the daily, weekly, year-to-date, and 12-month periods, with each showing a different balance between recent gains and longer-term losses, as shown in the table below.

The one-week numbers suggest that the rally has started to slow, with XRP still up 2.51% while Ethereum and Solana have posted smaller gains and Bitcoin is essentially flat, a noticeable change from the much stronger returns recorded across the 30-day period.

The longer-term numbers put that recent strength in perspective, as Bitcoin has held up better than the other three assets year-to-date. Over the past 12 months, XRP has posted the weakest performance across both periods, and Ethereum and Solana fall between the two.

The recent rally has therefore recovered some of the losses from earlier in the year, but it has not yet changed the broader performance picture. This makes the next few weeks important in determining whether these gains can hold or begin to fade.

What Would Make Each Gain Durable

Different factors are driving the recent gains in these four cryptocurrencies, and each still faces a test that could determine whether the rally has room to run.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s rally will need continued institutional buying to show that it is more than a short burst of demand.Daily spot ETF flows have been uneven, with $730.87 million flowing in on September 3 after $236.46 million left the funds on September 1, followed by another $174.60 million of inflows on September 4. The weekly numbers look more encouraging, with $986.85 million of inflows for the week of September 4, compared with $924.48 million the previous week and just $1.92 million the week before that. Cumulative net inflows are now close to $55.62 billion, while total net assets stand at around $101.25 billion.

That stronger flow helped support Bitcoin’s 25% rally in August, putting the $75,000–$76,500 area in focus as support and $80,000–$82,000 as the next major resistance zone. For the rally to look more durable, ETF demand will need to remain consistently positive rather than swinging sharply between inflows and outflows, particularly as the market approaches the September 15–16 Fed meeting.

XRPfaces a more immediate test, with the rally’s future closely tied to regulatory clarity. The Senate returns on September 14, and a failed cloture vote on September 15 to advance the CLARITY Act would effectively end the bill’s chances for 2026. The measure would need at least seven Democratic senators to cross party lines and reach the 60 votes required to move forward.

The odds have already weakened, with Galaxy Research cutting the bill’s chances of becoming law in 2026 to just 10%. The ongoing ethics-rules dispute has added another obstacle and could keep the bill delayed even if cloture passes. If the legislation passes, it could reduce enforcement uncertainty. However, if it fails, it could potentially trigger a 15% to 30% decline across the altcoin market.

Ethereum

Ethereum’s growing network activity needs to generate enough fees for the main chain, while developers also need to keep the protocol’s upgrade schedule on track. Stablecoins in circulation have grown to roughly $290 billion, with more than half issued on Ethereum, but the growing use of Layer 2 networks has raised questions about how much of that activity and revenue remains on the main chain. Standard Chartered, for example, estimated that Base alone had diverted $50 billion in market capitalization from Ethereum’s mainnet by capturing transaction fees.

Ethereum is also moving into the planning phase for its next major upgrade, Hegotá, whileGlamsterdamcontinues toward mainnet. The Ethereum Foundation has identified FOCIL, which aims to improve censorship resistance, and Frame Transactions, which supports native account abstraction, as two of the upgrade’s core commitments. 

The broader roadmap also targets full post-quantum security across the network by December 2029, starting with account abstraction and censorship resistance. For the recent gains to hold, Ethereum needs both its network activity and development work to keep moving forward, because weakness in either area could put pressure on the rally.

Solana

Solana’s main test is whether it can deliver a series of major upgrades on a relatively tight schedule. Transaction V1 is scheduled to go live on September 9 and would increase the maximum transaction size by roughly 3.3 times to 4,096 bytes, while theAlpenglow consensus upgradeis targeted for October and aims to reduce finality to about 150 milliseconds. Alpenglow remains listed as in development, however, and there is no guaranteed activation date.

For Solana’s recent gains to prove lasting, these upgrades must arrive on time and deliver improvements users and investors can see, whether through higher throughput, better network performance, or stronger fee economics. Until that happens, the rally remains partly a bet on what Solana’s roadmap will deliver rather than on improvements that have already been fully priced in.

Which Gain Is Most Likely to Hold?

Bitcoin’s gain looks most likely to hold, followed by Ethereum, XRP and Solana. Bitcoin has the smallest 30-day gain and the shallowest year-to-date decline, while Ethereum’s outlook does not depend on a single political decision. XRP and Solana have rebounded from deeper declines and still need their respective catalysts to sustain those gains.

The key tests are whether each cryptocurrency holds its 30-day gain after the Senate’s September 15 cloture vote, the Fed’s September 16 decision, and whether altcoin open interest falls back below Bitcoin’s. If both measures weaken, the biggest recent gainers could give back the most.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst who’s spent nearly a decade making blockchain understandable—no easy task when most whitepapers read like fever dreams. He writes for 24/7 Wall St., covering Bitcoin, altcoins, and crypto market analysis for investors. Before crypto, he was a tech writer (back when explaining “the cloud” was peak innovation). Since 2018, he’s written for CoinTelegraph, Yahoo Finance, The Block, Cryptonews, Zypto, Rain, and more—basically anywhere people want crypto news without the headache. Sam runs MacLabs Marketing, a content agency for crypto brands tired of sounding like AI wrote their website. He also publishes free crypto education on his site for Web3 enthusiasts who think “gas fees” is a typo. When he’s not writing or staring at charts, Sam’s either: – Watching anime (currently convinced One Piece has better tokenomics than most altcoins) – At the gym sculpting himself into a Greek god – Listening to the music your mum warned you only bad boys listen to Connect: LinkedIn | Email | MacLabs Marketing

Source: 247wallst.com