Solana traded near $106 on Sunday afternoon after reaching $110.38 on Aug. 27, its highest price since late January. $SOL has gained roughly 46% this month and is about 80% above its June low, pushing Solana’s market value back toward $61 billion.
Institutional Money Starts Chasing Solana
The rally ended 10 consecutive monthly declines and gave Solana its strongest month since 2024. However, $SOL remains well below its January 2025 all-time high ($ATH) near $293, making August a comeback rather than a period of price discovery. Solana would need to rise another 63.5% to reclaim that record.
Regulated investment products have provided a visible source of buying demand. U.S. spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have attracted roughly $1.34 billion in cumulative net inflows since launching in October 2025, according to data from sosovalue.com. Bitwise’s BSOL Solana fund, which also operates as a staking ETF, has surpassed $1 billion in assets under management.
Solana ETF statistics via sosovalue.com on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026.
Another major distribution channel is also approaching. On Aug. 27, Charles Schwab announced plans to add spot $SOL, avalanche (AVAX) and chainlink (LINK) to Schwab Crypto in the coming months. Schwab oversees more than $12 trillion in client assets across approximately 39 million brokerage accounts.
Corporate buyers are entering the market as well. Defi Development Corp. purchased 19,000 $SOL at an average price of $98.14, increasing its holdings to approximately 2.33 million $SOL. Goldman Sachs also disclosed roughly $88 million in Solana ETF exposure in its latest regulatory filing.
Solana Governance Vote Could Tighten Future Supply
Solana has completed its first binding onchain governance vote. SGP-0002, dubbed “Double Disinflation,” passed with 67% support from participating stakeholders, narrowly exceeding the required two-thirds threshold.
The proposal doubles Solana’s annual disinflation rate from 15% to 30%. In practical terms, new $SOL will enter circulation at a much slower rate sooner, while the network retains its eventual 1.5% inflation floor. Estimates suggest the change could reduce issuance by roughly 18.9 million $SOL over six years.
The impact will not be immediate. Developers must still complete the software work and activate the policy across the network, making implementation the next key checkpoint for traders monitoring Solana’s future supply.
Record Network Traffic Tests Solana’s Capacity
The price rally also coincided with heavy network activity. The Kobeissi Letter reported on Aug. 25 that Solana processed a record 4.2 billion transactions in July, 13.5% more than in June and roughly 91% above December 2025 levels. Between Aug. 17 and Aug. 23, the network processed approximately 1.32 billion non-vote transactions, setting another weekly record.
Blockworks data image showing Solana’s transfer count via The Kobeissi Letter’s X post on Aug. 25.
Additional capacity is already scheduled. Transaction V1, planned for Sept. 9, will increase the maximum transaction size from 1,232 bytes to 4,096 bytes, giving applications considerably more space to package data within individual transactions.
Storage costs could also decline. Solana’s planned rent reduction may eventually cut the deposit required to store data onchain by 90%, lowering expenses for developers building token accounts, non-fungible tokens and tokenized real-world assets.
September Could Determine Whether Solana’s Rally Continues
Leverage amplified August’s move, with more than $16 million in Solana short positions liquidated during the breakout toward $109, according to Coinglass.com derivatives data. Forced buying can accelerate a rally, but the same mechanism can intensify losses when momentum reverses.
September will present a more difficult test. $SOL traders will monitor the first rent reduction, the Transaction V1 upgrade on Sept. 9, faster transaction times and progress toward the planned Alpenglow consensus upgrade in October. These milestones could help determine whether August marked the beginning of a larger Solana recovery or simply produced the token’s sharpest rebound in nearly a year.
Feature and hero image via sosovalue.com metrics.
