Solana just wrapped up the biggest month in its history. A brand-new consensus engine, blocks twice as fast, record tokenized assets and a wave of Wall Street and payments partners all landed in October.
The price has not caught up yet. SOL is trading around $89.25 after this week’s market-wide sell-off dragged it below $90. But with the network’s fundamentals at all-time highs, that gap may not last long.
Historically, upgrades this big tend to get priced in once the broader market stabilizes.
And the chart is already hinting that the turn could be close.
Solana’s October In Numbers
The Solana Foundation summed up October as “a month of records across network speed, tokenized assets, payments, and institutional access” in a recap thread on X.
Here is what changed:
- Faster blocks: On Oct. 9, the final stage of SIMD-0525 cut Solana’s target slot time from 400 milliseconds to 200 milliseconds.
- New consensus engine: On Oct. 21, Alpenglow replaced TowerBFT on mainnet, targeting finality of around 150 milliseconds, down from roughly 12.8 seconds. The switch happened on a live network without a restart.
- Record RWAs: Real-world assets tokenized on Solana hit a new high of $5 billion.
- Trading and stablecoins: The chain processed about $60 billion in DEX volume, and 14 million addresses now hold stablecoins.
- Wall Street access: J.P. Morgan Asset Management brought tokenized money market funds to Solana through Morgan Money, while Securitize and Ondo expanded stock and portfolio products.
- Payments: Samsung Wallet, Fiserv and Western Union added Solana integrations, though some are still pilots or limited to certain regions.
Alpenglow also changes how validators vote. Votes are no longer posted as on-chain transactions, which frees up block space. Since votes made up about 63% of all Solana transactions, transaction-count dashboards will show a sharp drop that does not reflect weaker usage.
Why The Solana Price Hasn’t Caught Up Yet
The timing of the upgrades was the main issue. They landed just as macro pressure hit every risk asset at once, so the market has not had a chance to price in what Solana delivered.
The midterm election results and an AI-driven tech sell-off have since hit risk assets hard. Bitcoin fell back to its critical $76,000 level on Thursday, and altcoins followed.
Institutional demand has also dried up. According to Coinpedia, spot Solana ETFs have recorded no net inflows for 12 straight trading sessions. On Nov. 6 alone, Solana products saw about $25 million in outflows, alongside $412 million from Bitcoin ETFs and $93 million from Ethereum funds.
That is a sharp reversal from earlier this year, when Solana ETF inflows topped $1.16 billion.
RSI Divergence Hints At A Bullish Reversal
The chart is not all bad news, though. While the Solana price keeps printing lower lows, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has started to climb.
That is a classic bullish divergence. It suggests selling pressure is weakening even as price drifts lower, a pattern that often appears near the end of a correction.
According to crypto trader Sweep, SOL falling while RSI rises is a sign of seller exhaustion, the kind of setup that has preceded sharp rallies before.
Bulls will want to see SOL reclaim its short-term moving averages to confirm the signal. If that happens alongside a calmer macro backdrop, October’s record month gives the rally plenty of fundamental fuel.
Solana Price Levels To Watch
The first test for bulls is reclaiming $90. SOL lost that level this week, and turning it back into support would be the first sign the divergence is playing out.
Above that, the $95 area is the next hurdle, followed by the psychological $100 mark. A clean break above $100 would end the pattern of lower highs and put October’s highs back in focus.
On the downside, the $86 zone is the nearest support. A breakdown there would open the door toward the $80 level, where SOL found buyers during its earlier slide below $80.
The catalyst to watch is ETF flows. A return of steady inflows would give the Solana price the institutional bid it has been missing, and would let the market finally start pricing in October’s upgrades. For more updates, follow the latest altcoin news.
What do you think happens next?
Is Solana’s record October about to show up in the price, and could SOL be back above $100 before the end of the year?
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