Solana (SOL): our full analysis, October 2026

Author: Yan Chan, capital manager at Axone Capital

2026-10-17 · 4 min read

Solana has become a payment rail for Visa, Stripe and PayPal, yet SOL still trades almost 60% below its record. What the network does, what moved the price, the levels to watch and where the price stands under the buy low, sell high rule.

Coming from our video? Here is the summary of our Solana analysis. The full analysis (charts, price markers, buy low / sell high grid) can be downloaded as a PDF at the bottom of this page. Data as of 5 October 2026.

What Solana does

Solana (SOL) is a high-speed layer 1 blockchain launched in 2020. It processes thousands of transactions per second at a cost of a fraction of a cent, which makes it suited to payments, trading and consumer applications.

Beyond memecoins, Solana has become a settlement layer for major payment companies: stablecoins such as USDC, USDT and PYUSD move on the network every day. According to Messari, its payment volume rose 755% year on year (February 2026). And spot Solana ETFs have been trading in the US since October 2025.

Who trusts it

  • Visa: USDC settlement pilot on Solana, above $3.5B in annualised volume
  • Western Union: its USDPT stablecoin is rolling out on Solana in 2026 for its agent network
  • Stripe: stablecoin payments infrastructure using Solana
  • PayPal: its PYUSD stablecoin has been issued on Solana since 2024
  • Shopify: Solana Pay integration for merchants
  • Bitwise / Grayscale: spot Solana ETFs (BSOL, GSOL) live since October 2025

What moved the price

SOL rose from about $4 to over $200 in 2021, collapsed to under $10 after the FTX scandal, then delivered one of the strongest recoveries of the cycle.

  • 2021, $1.5 to $208: DeFi and NFT boom, with heavy backing from FTX and Alameda Research.
  • November 2022, below $10: collapse of FTX, one of Solana's biggest backers and SOL holders.
  • Q4 2023, $20 to $100: the FTX overhang clears, the Jito airdrop rewards users and memecoins such as BONK bring activity back.
  • March 2024, above $200: memecoin mania on Solana (pump.fun, BOME).
  • 19 January 2025, record at $293.31: launch of the TRUMP memecoin on Solana two days earlier, post-election euphoria and the first spot SOL ETF filings.
  • Summer 2025, $155 to $209: listed companies build SOL treasuries and the market prices in spot ETFs.
  • October 2025 to July 2026, $209 to $73: record liquidation crash on 10 October 2025, then a broad crypto bear market.
  • August and September 2026, $73 to $124 (+68%): macro relief from Washington (Treasury buybacks, new SEC token rules), faster blocks on 18 September, record ETF inflows and the Alpenglow upgrade.

Key figures, Solana as of 5 October 2026

  • $119.46: current price
  • $293.31: all-time high (19 January 2025)
  • −59%: discount from the record
  • About $71B: market cap
  • About −37%: since our previous analysis (about $190 in January 2025)
  • +64%: from the 12-month low ($73 in July 2026)

Our view

Strengths:

  • Real institutional adoption in payments: Visa, Western Union, Stripe.
  • Spot ETFs give regulated access to SOL.
  • A fast, cheap network with a large developer ecosystem.
  • A strong rebound since the July 2026 low.

Watch points:

  • The price is still about 59% below its all-time high.
  • The ETF catalyst is already behind us.
  • SOL is still sensitive to altcoin cycles and memecoin activity.

Levels to watch

  • $100: support, lower bound of the 2024 base
  • $156 to $180: former accumulation zone, now resistance
  • $293: all-time high

Bottom line: Solana is one of the few networks with real, growing institutional use in payments, but the price has not followed yet. A weekly reclaim of the $156 to $180 zone would be the first sign of a new bullish phase. A loss of $100 would put the July 2026 low back in play.

Buy low, sell high: where does SOL stand?

Over 12 months, SOL has traded between $73 and $134 and sits at 77% of that range. Our grid splits the price into three zones:

  • Buy zone: $73 to $110. A pullback to $100 to $110, support of the 2024 base, offers the best risk to reward.
  • Neutral zone: $110 to $156. This is where the current price sits, at $119.46.
  • Sell zone: $156 to $209, the former accumulation zone and the summer 2025 peak, where selling pressure has repeatedly appeared.

The analysis verdict: lower half. SOL trades almost 60% below its record, close to the support of its 2024 base. The very bottom has passed (+64% since July), but the price remains far from the zones where it has historically been sold. Under this rule, it is an entry zone rather than an exit zone.

Educational grid based on monthly closes and historical levels as of 5 October 2026. Educational content, not investment advice.

Crypto-assets are highly volatile: you may lose some or all of your capital. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Sources of the analysis: CoinGecko, Coinranking, Digrin, Messari, CoinDesk, company press releases.

Video and PDF

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Published on Axone Capital, capital management, macro analysis and trading by Yan Chan.