Solana Price Forecast - SOL-USD Holds $135 as ETF Demand and Tokenized Stocks Put $156 in Sight

Solana Price Forecast - SOL-USD Holds $135 as ETF Demand and Tokenized Stocks Put $156 in Sight

SOL-USD trades under $147 resistance as Morgan Stanley’s SOL ETF filing, $800M+ ETF inflows and record Solana DEX volume support a medium-term bullish setup toward the $156 zone | That's TradingNEWS

TradingNEWS Archive 1/8/2026 9:09:33 PM
Crypto SOL/USD SOL USD

Solana (SOL-USD) Price Snapshot and Trend Context

Short-Term Performance, Range, and Momentum

Solana (SOL-USD) trades around $136–$137, up roughly 1–1.5% on the day after a six-day rally from about $120 pushed price to a peak near $143.4 before sellers stepped in at the December supply zone. That leg represents a gain of roughly 15–20%, followed by a controlled pullback rather than a full reversal. Year-to-date, SOL is up more than 9%, while Bitcoin is only about 3% higher, so Solana still leads the large-cap crypto pack on relative strength. Week-to-date, SOL holds around +1.5%, versus a slight loss for BTC. On the daily chart, price trades above a cluster of short-term moving averages around $135, with the daily RSI around 56–57, clearly in neutral-to-bullish territory. Volatility has compressed relative to the breakout leg, indicating consolidation inside an uptrend rather than the start of a new downtrend.

Break of the Bearish Structure and the 0.618 Fibonacci Pivot

The most important structural change in Solana (SOL-USD) is the break of the previous lower-high downtrend. Price pushed decisively through the last key lower high with an impulsive move, not a slow corrective grind, which signals a genuine transfer of control from sellers to buyers. After that breakout, SOL printed a new swing high in the $143–$145 region, around the value area high, confirming that bulls can drive price through prior supply. For this shift to mature into a durable uptrend, the market now needs a clean higher low rather than a round-trip back into the old range. The current retracement is rotating toward the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement of the impulsive leg, a classic “make-or-break” area for trend continuation. As long as SOL-USD holds above that 0.618 zone and above the broken descending structure, the bullish thesis stays intact; a decisive loss of that region would push Solana back into extended consolidation and delay any sustained uptrend.

On-Chain Volume, NVT, and Network Usage Tailwinds for SOL-USD

On-chain data for Solana (SOL-USD) supports the bullish technical picture. Solana-based decentralized exchanges processed roughly $1.6 trillion in trading volume during 2025, a figure that rivals or exceeds many centralized venues and confirms that Solana is carrying meaningful transactional load rather than pure speculation. At the same time, the network value to transactions (NVT) ratio is sitting near a seven-month high, which tells you valuation has outpaced raw transaction value in the short term. Historically, elevated NVT often leads to cooling phases or sideways digestion before the next leg higher. Liquidity flows are turning in Solana’s favor. Between December 22 and 28, weekly net inflows dropped by about $129.25 million, the weakest week of Q4 2025. In the following week (Dec 29 – Jan 4), net inflows recovered to around $134.6 million, breaking a six-week downtrend. Daily active addresses also climbed from roughly 1.8 million on January 1 to more than 2.6 million by January 6, indicating that user activity and protocol demand are rising alongside price.

Tokenized Stocks Leadership and DEX Meme Flows as Structural Drivers

Solana has quietly taken the lead in tokenized stocks, which feeds directly into the medium-term case for SOL-USD. The market cap of tokenized equities and synthetic stock products on Solana has moved above $800 million, allowing it to overtake Ethereum in this specific segment. Issuers are voting with their feet, choosing Solana’s throughput and fee profile as the preferred rail for tokenized financial assets. At the same time, altcoin DEX volumes on Solana have surged by roughly 39% in recent weeks, driven by aggressive flows into Solana-based meme coins like BONK, PENGU and others that printed 40%+ rallies during the reversal. These cycles produce very high transaction throughput and protocol fee revenue for validators. Combined with the expectation that Solana could overtake Ethereum in annual protocol revenue, supported by high-volume dApps and USDC settlement flows, this positions Solana as a chain with both speculative and structural demand, not just a high-beta trade.

ETF Flows, Morgan Stanley’s Filing, and the Institutional Bid Under SOL-USD

The ETF and institutional layer is now a critical part of the Solana (SOL-USD) story. Spot Solana ETFs launched in late 2025 and have maintained a pattern of consistent net inflows, while some Bitcoin and Ethereum funds went through phases of heavy outflows. In just the first week of January, Solana ETFs attracted around $35.7 million of net inflows across three trading days. In total, spot Solana ETFs have generated about $803 million of cumulative net inflows and now hold roughly $1.08 billion in net assets, equal to about 1.41% of Solana’s market cap. That is a real institutional footprint, not a niche product. The Morgan Stanley ETF filing amplifies this. The bank, with around $1.8 trillion in assets under management, has filed for ETFs tracking Bitcoin and Solana, positioning SOL alongside BTC and ETH in a mainstream product suite. These vehicles are designed for roughly 19 million wealth-management clients. This broadens the buyer base for SOL from crypto-native funds and retail traders to traditional, regulated portfolios and supports a durable baseline of demand that is not purely momentum-driven.

Key Technical Levels: Support at $135–$130 and Resistance at $145–$156

From a pure chart perspective, Solana (SOL-USD) trades inside a clean level structure that defines the risk. On the downside, the first key support is the $135 band, where short-term moving averages cluster. Slightly below sits the 55-day simple moving average around $131.8, which is the first major test if the rejection at $143–$147 persists. Beneath that, the $128 zone offers secondary support. Deeper still, the $120 area and the December low near $116.94 mark the lower boundary of the weekly consolidation regime; a loss of that band opens risk to the $100 psychological level. On the upside, $140 is the breakout line of a bullish flag on the 4-hour chart. A sustained move above $140 confirms continuation from the current consolidation. The $143.4–$146.9 region is the hard resistance defined by the recent high and the early December peak; a daily close above that band would complete a bottoming pattern and end the prior bearish channel. Once that happens, the next target is the $155–$156 resistance zone, followed by the $172–$173 region where the 200-day SMA resides, if bulls can push a full trend extension.

Derivatives Positioning, RSI Signals, and the Long/Short Skew

Momentum and derivatives data for Solana (SOL-USD) align with a consolidation phase inside a bullish bias. On the 4-hour chart, the RSI sits near 50, reflecting neutral intraday momentum after the 4.8% pullback from $143.4. On the daily chart, the RSI around 56–57 confirms that the medium-term setup remains bullish rather than exhausted. In perpetual and futures markets, the long/short ratio has climbed from about 2.8 to roughly 3.5 during the recent dip, showing that more traders are using the retracement to build or add long exposure instead of cutting risk. Funding rates have also edged higher, confirming that leveraged positioning is skewed toward the long side. That skew is supportive as long as SOL-USD respects the $130–$135 floor; if that band fails, the crowded long side becomes a vulnerability and can accelerate a downside move via liquidations.

Weekly Consolidation Box and Medium-Term Direction for SOL-USD

On the weekly timeframe, Solana (SOL-USD) is trading inside a well-defined consolidation box with support around $120 and resistance around $145. Every touch of the upper band has triggered profit-taking, while dips toward the lower band have attracted fresh demand. The current price near $136–$137 sits in the upper half of this box, which is constructive but not yet a breakout. A weekly close above $145 would be a major technical signal. It would confirm a break through the early December high near $146.93, complete a medium-term basing structure, and open the path towards the $155–$156 zone and then the $172–$173 region around the 200-day SMA. If, instead, price continues to fail under $145–$147 and then breaks back below $130, the probability of another trip toward $120–$117 rises sharply, extending the sideways regime and pushing any sustainable uptrend further out in time.

Valuation Tension: Elevated NVT Versus Revenues, ETFs and Real Usage

Valuation indicators for Solana (SOL-USD) reflect a tension between elevated metrics and strong fundamentals. The NVT ratio at a seven-month high signals that market cap has outrun transaction value in the short term, which typically precedes either a sideways digestion phase or a deeper retracement. At the same time, several hard datapoints justify a structural premium over weaker L1s. Protocol revenue on Solana is projected to surpass Ethereum, backed by sustained dApp usage, tokenized asset flows, and stablecoin settlement volumes. About $1.08 billion of ETF assets, or 1.41% of market cap, are now locked in regulated SOL products, reducing free float and anchoring part of the demand in institutional portfolios. Tokenized stock market cap above $800 million and $1.6 trillion of DEX volume in 2025 confirm that Solana’s valuation rests on real economic activity, not narrative alone. Short term, this mix argues for higher volatility around a generally rising trend rather than a simple reversion.

 

Risk Map: Levels and Events That Can Break the Solana Bullish Case

The bullish setup for Solana (SOL-USD) is strong but sensitive to a few obvious triggers. The first risk is repeated failure at $145–$147 combined with a clean break below $130; that pattern would downgrade the current move from trend continuation to bull trap and raise the odds of a full retest of $120–$117, with $100 as the next psychological level if market-wide risk appetite deteriorates. The second risk is crowded leverage. A long/short ratio above 3 and rising funding can quickly flip from support to fuel if price breaks support, forcing liquidations. Third, the ETF narrative depends on the $800m+ cumulative inflows and new products like the Morgan Stanley filing. Delays, regulatory pushback or a rotation out of alt L1 ETFs into Bitcoin-heavy portfolios would hit the demand side. Finally, macro and crypto-cycle risk remains in play; if the broader market de-rates risk assets again, high-beta names like SOL almost always underperform on the downside, regardless of on-chain strength.

Actionable View on Solana (SOL-USD): Bias, Levels, and Targets

When you put all the data together—price structure, on-chain volumes, tokenization leadership, ETF flows, institutional interest and technical levels—Solana (SOL-USD) justifies a bullish stance with clearly defined risk rather than a neutral or bearish view. The operational bias is straightforward. As long as SOL-USD holds above the $130–$135 support band on closing basis, the market is building a higher-low structure that can support a continuation toward $143–$147, then $155–$156, and, if flows and risk appetite stay intact, toward the $172–$173 zone around the 200-day SMA. The structural invalidation level sits below $120–$117; a sustained break under that region would flip the chart from accumulation to a renewed downtrend. In the current configuration, with ETF inflows positive, on-chain usage elevated and technicals supportive, controlled dips into $130–$135 favor buying rather than selling, with upside skewed toward higher levels once the $145–$147 ceiling is finally cleared.

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