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Research · Altcoins · Strand D

The SOL/BTC ratio across cycles

Dividing SOL's price by BTC's removes the part of both series that is just the market moving. What is left is the relative record: the 2021 expansion, the 2022 drawdown, and the recovery that followed it.

Last reviewed 2026-09-21Source: CoinGecko daily close series for SOL and BTC; Messari asset-level researchRatio construction and phase dates only. No ratio level or return figure is asserted that the reader cannot recompute from the cited daily series.

How the ratio is constructed

The ratio is SOL's daily close divided by BTC's daily close on the same date, using the CoinGecko series for both assets. Because the ratio is a quotient of two prices, it is unitless: a value of 0.001 means one SOL is worth one-thousandth of one BTC on that date. The window runs from SOL's first liquid market in August 2020 to the last complete month before this page's review date.

The reason to look at the ratio rather than at each price series separately is that both assets are exposed to the same broad market factor. When that factor moves, both prices move, and the separate series mostly show the market. The ratio cancels the common component and leaves the relative move, which is the thing a reader asking "how did SOL do against BTC" actually wants to see.

The ratio is plotted on a logarithmic scale where a chart is used, because a linear scale would compress the early period into invisibility. The phase boundaries below follow the cycle dates used elsewhere on this site so the record can be read alongside Bitcoin's own cycle pages.

The phases of the ratio

Phases of the SOL/BTC ratio, with the window each covers and what the ratio did over it.
PhaseWindowWhat the ratio did
Listing and price discoveryAug 2020 – Dec 2020Started from a low base and moved in a wide range as SOL's market formed. The ratio was thin and its daily moves were large relative to later periods.
2021 expansionJan 2021 – Nov 2021Rose substantially over the window. SOL's advance outpaced BTC's through the same liquidity cycle, and the ratio made its high in this period.
Cycle peakNov 2021The ratio's high for the record. This is the reference point against which the drawdown that followed is measured.
2022 drawdownNov 2021 – Dec 2022Fell heavily from the peak. The decline was larger than BTC's own drawdown over the same window, so the ratio fell even as both prices fell.
RecoveryJan 2023 – Dec 2024Recovered from the trough but did not regain the 2021 high within this window. The recovery was uneven, with long stretches of range-bound behaviour.
Recent periodJan 2025 – review dateContinued to trade well below the 2021 peak, with the ratio's direction driven by the relative pace of the two assets rather than by a single trend.

Last reviewed 2026-09-21Source: CoinGecko daily close series for SOL and BTCPhase boundaries follow the cycle dates used on this site's Bitcoin cycle pages; the ratio itself is computed from the cited daily series.

The 2022 drawdown and the recovery that followed

The 2022 drawdown is the defining event in this record. Both assets fell, but they did not fall by the same amount, and the ratio captures the difference. From the November 2021 peak to the trough in late 2022, the ratio declined by more than either asset's own price decline, which is the arithmetic consequence of SOL falling further than BTC over the same window.

The recovery that began in 2023 is the other half of the story, and it is the part that is usually told badly. The ratio recovered from its trough, but it did not return to the 2021 high within the window covered here. A reader who reads "recovery" as "back to the peak" will be misled; the correct statement is that the ratio regained part of what it lost and then traded in a range.

It is worth separating two things that are often conflated. A falling ratio means SOL underperformed BTC over that window. It does not mean SOL's price fell in absolute terms, and it does not mean the network failed at anything. Relative performance and absolute performance are different measurements, and the ratio only speaks to the first.

What this page does not claim

The ratio is a relative measure, and relative measures are easy to misread. A ratio that rises can rise because the numerator rose, because the denominator fell, or because both happened at different rates. The ratio alone cannot tell a reader which of those occurred, and the interpretation is different in each case.

The ratio also inherits every weakness of the underlying price series. It is built from venue-aggregated closes, so it carries the same small cross-venue discrepancies described on the correlation page. In the early months, when SOL's market was thin, those discrepancies were larger relative to the price.

Most importantly, the ratio is a description of what happened, not an explanation of why. A period in which the ratio rose is a period in which SOL outperformed BTC; it is not evidence that any specific event caused that outperformance. The outperformance periods page takes that question on directly and is careful about the same distinction.

Dataset, period, method and limitations

Dataset
CoinGecko daily close series for SOL and BTC, with supply and unlock context cross-checked against Messari's asset-level records.
Period
August 2020 to the last complete month before the review date, covering the 2021 expansion, the 2022 contraction and the recovery that followed.
Method
SOL's daily close divided by BTC's daily close on the same date, plotted on a logarithmic scale. Phase boundaries follow this site's Bitcoin cycle dates so the record can be read alongside Bitcoin's own cycle pages.
Limitations
The record covers one full cycle and part of a second, which is not enough to establish a pattern. The ratio is sensitive to the choice of start date, and it says nothing about liquidity, market depth or the cost of transacting at the quoted price.

Where this sits in the wider record

The ratio is the relative-price record that the correlation page measures on daily returns. The drawdown comparison covers the peak-to-trough behaviour in more detail, and the market-cap growth page covers what supply changes did to the capitalisation series over the same period.

For Bitcoin's own cycle structure, which supplies the phase boundaries used here, see cycle comparison and market cycles.

Sources and references

Every source below is named and linked. Where a page describes a method rather than a figure, the source is the specification or documentation that defines the method. Last reviewed 2026-09-21.

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