Solana has logged ten consecutive red monthly candles, yet institutional flows and network upgrades tell a different story.
Solana has logged ten consecutive red monthly candles, yet institutional flows and network upgrades tell a different story.

Solana trades near $73, down 75 percent from its January 2025 peak of $294.33, as ETF inflows grow ahead of the Alpenglow upgrade.
Morgan Stanley's newly launched Solana Trust (NYSE Arca: MSOL) carries a 0.14 percent expense ratio and passes all staking rewards to investors, a first among major US bank-backed crypto ETPs, the firm said. The fund follows the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, which had accumulated more than $381 million in assets under management as of July 16.
Spot Solana ETFs are seeing daily net inflows in the low seven figures, according to CoinGecko data. SOL traded at $73.80 as of Aug. 3, up 1 percent over 24 hours, holding above support at $70.
The Alpenglow upgrade, expected to materially improve transaction finality, could strengthen Solana's competitiveness in trading and real-time applications — a key test for a token that has fallen for ten straight months.
SOL closed lower every month from October 2025 through July 2026 — ten consecutive red monthly candles, the longest streak in the network's history. The 2022 bear market produced nine red months, but they were broken up by green ones. This streak has no green months at all.
On almost every fundamental measure that is not price, Solana is having a strong year. Tokenized real-world asset value reached $3.62 billion as of mid-2026, up from roughly $1.4 billion in January, with 292,818 holders — the most of any chain, per RWA.xyz data. Solana holds about 96 percent of global tokenized equity volume, with June's $3.47 billion a record. Net RWA inflows over the trailing 30 days reached roughly $967 million, the highest of any chain.
The mechanism behind the disconnect is not mysterious. Tokenized equity settlement generates a fraction of a cent per transaction. Memecoin churn generates fees, MEV, priority auctions, and volatile demand for blockspace. One is a business; the other is a casino, and casinos pay better.
Competition for that casino traffic is intensifying. Robinhood's Arbitrum-based Layer 2, launched July 1, saw daily volume jump from roughly $200,000 to more than $500 million in its first nine days, per DefiLlama data cited by Fortune. Memecoins accounted for 79.2 percent of Robinhood Chain DEX volume as of July 27. Robinhood Chain launchpads cleared roughly $1.23 billion in a single week, marginally ahead of PumpSwap's $1.22 billion over the same period.
Analysts watching the technicals treat a monthly close above $80.50 as the confirmation level. SOL sits below its 100-day EMA near $80 and well below its 200-day EMA near $92. RSI near 29 puts SOL in oversold territory, but oversold is a condition, not a trigger.
The Alpenglow upgrade is the most concrete forward event. If it delivers on finality improvements, it could strengthen Solana's competitive positioning in trading and real-time applications, potentially attracting further institutional capital. The upgrade's success — or failure — will determine whether the ten-month streak extends or finally breaks.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.