Solana Payments Surge to $94 Million as ETF Flows Turn Mixed

Solana (SOL) traded in a tight range this week as its market structure showed signs of transition: speculative activity appears to be cooling, while payments and institutional-facing use cases are expanding. The token hovered between roughly $73 and $78, struggling to establish a clear direction even as stablecoin-based commerce on the network posted sharply higher market share.

As of Friday UTC, Solana was changing hands near $73.73, down 2.79% over the previous day, according to CoinMarketCap data cited in the report. While 24-hour volume was still robust at about $1.54 billion, pricing across venues diverged unusually widely—an indicator of fragmented liquidity and uneven order flow. CoinGecko showed SOL around $77.52 and Stocktwits near $78.18, while other quotes sat closer to $74, implying a gap approaching 5% between platforms.

That dispersion is notable because it often appears when short-term leveraged participation fades and liquidity becomes more segmented, particularly across offshore venues. Analysts interpret such conditions as consistent with a market increasingly dominated by larger, more selective flows—an environment where price discovery can become less synchronized in the short run.

Stablecoin payments surge as real-economy adoption accelerates

The more consequential development has been on the usage side. In May, top-ups and payments via Solana-based stablecoin card rails hit a record $94.32 million, according to figures referenced in the Korean report. Solana’s share of the broader stablecoin payments market climbed to 21%, up from about 5% a year earlier—more than a fourfold increase.

Professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal said it recently accepted its first client payment via the Solana blockchain in USD Coin (USDC), marking a high-profile example of blockchain-based settlement making inroads into traditional corporate workflows. Separately, Privy—owned by payments giant Stripe—announced a collaboration with Jito Labs to release “FullSend,” a transaction reliability tool designed to help Privy wallet transactions land in blocks more quickly, reducing user-perceived delays at the application layer.

The picture is different in high-beta trading activity. Data cited from Cryptonomist suggested Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) fees fell more than 63% over the past 30 days, consistent with a drawdown in meme coin-driven churn. Yet overall on-chain transaction volume over the same period was reported to have more than doubled versus Jan. 1 levels, pointing to a qualitative shift in network usage toward payments, enterprise settlement experiments, and infrastructure-heavy DeFi activity.

‘Alpenglow’ aims to remake consensus, targeting 150ms finality

Solana’s roadmap may further reinforce that shift. Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko described the planned ‘Alpenglow’ consensus redesign as one of the most significant protocol changes in Solana’s history, as the upgrade would replace core components—Proof of History (PoH) and Tower BFT—with a new architecture intended to reduce finality to roughly 150 milliseconds.

Validator signaling has been overwhelmingly supportive, with about 98% indicating approval, according to the figures cited in the report, and a mainnet activation targeted for the third quarter of 2026. The timing overlaps with strong network usage metrics: weekly non-vote transactions have surpassed 1 billion, and active wallets are approaching a yearly peak near 7 million. In that context, Solana’s push is framed as a foundational effort to secure speed, stability, and scalability simultaneously under heavier real-world loads.

Under the plan, the consensus layer would move to a new structure labeled ‘Votor’ and ‘Rotor,’ designed to minimize processing delays during periods of congestion, improve developer experience, and support more complex financial applications as well as large-scale payment systems. For market participants, the significance is less about marketing claims and more about whether the upgrade can reduce tail-risk events—such as stalled confirmations—without compromising decentralization or validator incentives.

Spot Solana ETFs surpass $1 billion, but flows turn mixed

Institutional exposure has also expanded, though near-term demand has not been one-way. Following the launch of U.S. spot Solana ETFs, total assets have exceeded $1 billion, with products from issuers including Bitwise (BSOL) and Fidelity (FSOL). Morgan Stanley was also reported to be preparing a Solana trust product. CoinGecko data cited in the report showed Bitwise’s ETF posting a daily net inflow of $2.64 million at one point.

More recently, however, the combined spot Solana ETF complex saw about $8.6 million in net outflows, reflecting a broader ‘risk-off’ tone tied to macro uncertainty. Forbes was cited as noting SOL dipped intraday to around $73.53, down as much as 3.8% at the session low, mirroring a wider pullback across crypto assets.

Still, tokenization experiments continue to build a longer-term institutional narrative. Galaxy Digital previously partnered with Superstate to tokenize SEC-registered common stock directly onto Solana, aiming for near-instant settlement on a public ledger. Such pilots underscore the bifurcated nature of current flows: tactical allocations can exit quickly, but strategic experimentation with on-chain settlement is expanding.

Key resistance at $79–$85 as technicals remain neutral

From a chart perspective, analysts have highlighted $79 to $85 as a major resistance zone. Data referenced from Glassnode’s URPD (Unrealized Profit and Loss Distribution) suggested roughly 105 million SOL previously changed hands in that band, creating a potentially heavy supply overhang as holders look to exit at breakeven.

Solana also remains below its 200-day exponential moving average, reported near $94.78, while the relative strength index (RSI) was around 52.56—neutral territory. The crypto fear-and-greed gauge was cited at 33, consistent with ‘fear’ conditions. Trader Michaël van de Poppe was quoted as saying a break above $77 could open room toward $125–$130, but he tied that scenario to a revival in speculative volume.

Longer-dated forecasting models cited in the report ranged widely, with one projection placing SOL’s average price near $101 by the end of 2026 and another estimate suggesting around $127.6 in 2027. Such estimates are inherently uncertain, but they reflect a market weighing two competing forces: near-term liquidity constraints and resistance levels versus a structural adoption story centered on payments, tokenization, and performance upgrades.

Across relayer exploit highlights cross-chain risk, not base-layer failure

Security concerns also surfaced this week, though the incident was not attributed to Solana’s base layer. Cross-chain protocol Across said an attacker forged Solana deposit records, creating roughly $41.7 million in fraudulent deposits. The net loss was reportedly under $4 million, with recovery efforts underway for the remainder.

The episode underscores that ‘cross-chain’ relayers and bridge infrastructure remain one of the industry’s most persistent attack surfaces. While Solana’s validator set and core consensus were not compromised, such events can still weigh on ecosystem confidence—particularly as interoperability expands and more value is routed through third-party messaging and settlement layers.

For now, Solana’s price action suggests hesitation, but the underlying story is becoming more complex: a network seeing real-economy stablecoin traction and deeper institutional experimentation, while speculative froth recedes and critical infrastructure—including consensus and cross-chain security—moves into the spotlight.