Five Milestones That Will Decide Whether Solana’s Rally Holds
SOL has recovered to about $120, but ETF demand, Alpenglow’s mainnet path, stablecoin activity, tokenized stocks and key technical levels will determine whether the rally can continue.
Solana (SOL) has climbed roughly 80% from its late-June low near $67, returning to around $120 after a series of bullish network and market developments. The rally now faces five tests, though not all of them create direct demand for the token.
ETF Flows Are the Clearest Demand Signal
US spot Solana ETFs recorded a weekly inflow of $188.21 million between September 21 and 25, their largest week since launching in late 2025. Bitwise’s BSOL led with $128.46 million, followed by Grayscale’s GSOL at $28.06 million and Fidelity’s FSOL at $17.59 million.
Cumulative inflows have now exceeded $1.61 billion across 12 consecutive positive weeks. ETF flows are the most direct bullish milestone because fund inflows must be matched by purchases of SOL. The stronger confirmation would be several consecutive weeks above $100 million; a first week of net outflows would weaken the rally’s demand story. Schwab’s decision to open SOL trading to brokerage clients could provide another distribution channel.
Network Growth Does Not Automatically Mean Token Demand
Alpenglow, Solana’s consensus upgrade, went live on testnet on September 24. The system’s Votor design targets finality of roughly 150 milliseconds, compared with about 12.8 seconds under TowerBFT. However, Anza has not announced a mainnet date, and the observation period could expose bugs or compatibility issues, including support limitations involving Jump Crypto’s Firedancer client.
Alpenglow also moves validator votes off-chain. Since votes currently account for about 57% of daily Solana transactions, headline transaction counts may fall after mainnet activation without indicating weaker real usage.
Solana’s stablecoin supply reached a record $17.3 billion, including about $8.4 billion in USDC. Yet supply growth matters to SOL only if it translates into payments, lending, decentralized-exchange volume and fee generation. Similarly, Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante said the exchange aims to expand tokenized stocks from about 200 symbols to 10,000, but offered no rollout timeline. The initiative could strengthen Solana’s relevance while creating only indirect SOL demand.
The $120 Price Test
SOL has reportedly failed twice to decisively break the $120 area. A daily close above resistance would provide technical confirmation that the market is absorbing supply, while a move below the 20-day average would weaken the bullish structure.
What This Means
The rally has its strongest foundation when ETF inflows, network upgrades and real on-chain activity reinforce one another. Still, only ETF purchases provide an immediate and measurable demand channel for SOL. Stablecoins, faster finality and tokenized equities can make Solana busier without necessarily making the token more valuable. Sustained ETF inflows and a clean move above $120 would improve the outlook; reversed flows or a technical breakdown would expose the gap between ecosystem growth and token demand.