Solana (SOL) Price: Dip Buys, Record Network Activity and Alpenglow Upgrade Put SOL in Focus

TLDR

• SOL is trading near $104 after buyers defended the $100 level several times from Wednesday to Sunday.
• Alpenglow is set to go live on mainnet Oct. 21, cutting finality from about 13 seconds to 150ms.
• Solana logged 8.92 billion successful non-vote transactions in Q3, its busiest quarter of the past four.
• Solana ETFs have seen 10 straight days of outflows, totaling nearly $55 million in October.
• SOL needs to clear $114 to break its bearish structure, with $120 as the first target.

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Solana (SOL) is trading near $104 as the market heads into a week with little economic data. The token stayed above $100 despite heavy selling last week.

From Wednesday to Sunday, sellers made several attempts to push SOL below $100. Each one was met with strong buying. Trading volume rose 48% after a busy weekend.

CoinGecko data shows SOL at $104.21, up 3.3% over 24 hours but down 3.5% over seven days. Market capitalization is near $61.4 billion, and daily volume is $2.89 billion.

Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade is scheduled for Oct. 21 on Epoch 1064, according to the project’s website. It has run on testnet and devnet, and results so far have been satisfying.

🚨 Alpenglow update: epoch 1064 on mainnet-beta is tracking earlier than our estimate. Slots are running faster than projected, which pulls the epoch boundary forward.

We’ll share an updated countdown time tomorrow morning once more data is in.

Here is why timing moves. 🧵

— Anza (@anza_xyz) October 19, 2026

The upgrade replaces TowerBFT’s voting and finality process with a system called Votor. Validators send votes directly to each other and combine them into certificates, instead of placing vote transactions inside blocks.

Finality should drop from about 13 seconds to 150ms. Solana’s documentation says execution, programs and fees stay the same, so users will sign and send transactions as before.

Analyst Alejandro Arrieche notes that upgrades like this have lifted other tokens before, citing Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade in April 2025. He says the heavy buying at $100 could be accumulation ahead of Alpenglow, and he sees a possible move to $150 in the coming weeks.

Chart Analysis and Network Activity

On the daily SOL/USDT chart, the last four candles show long lower wicks at $100. That points to heavy dip buying. Still, the structure is bearish, and RSI has slipped below 40, so momentum hasn’t flipped yet.

Bulls need a daily close above $114 to invalidate the downtrend, with $120 as the first target. There is also a sell wall around $107 to $108. Watch for a break of that zone next.

Wealthmanager noted on X that SOL finally broke its falling trendline after three failed attempts. The analyst says it is now retesting the breakout level, and if support holds, another push higher could follow.

$SOL finally broke its falling trendline after three failed attempts.

Now it’s retesting the breakout level. If support holds, another push higher could follow. pic.twitter.com/AqBsnLyYUF

— Wealthmanager (@Wealthmanager) October 19, 2026

Network activity is also climbing. Solana reported 8.92 billion successful non-vote transactions in Q3, up 24% from Q2 and more than double Q4 2025’s 4.38 billion. Solana Compass counts 8.78 billion for the same period.

Not all of that is human activity. Compass says its figures include bot-driven trading and circular swaps.

Solana ETFs have not followed the trend. They have posted 10 days of net outflows, with nearly $55 million withdrawn in October. A month ago, those funds took in $272 million.

RWA TOKENIZATION ON SOLANA IS EXPLODING.

Solana’s RWA market has grown 514% over the past year, making it one of the fastest-growing L1s.

And 1.4 Million addresses now hold tokenized stocks on Solana.

The latest numbers show how much activity is happening on it:

• $4.38…

— Ash Crypto (@AshCrypto) October 20, 2026

Real-world asset activity on Solana is growing. Its RWA market is up 514% over the past year and holds $4.38 billion in value. Tokenized stocks drew $4.4 billion in trading volume in September.

DWF Labs research shows Solana’s share of tokenized-equity DEX volume fell to 31% in early October from 99.8% in January. The most recent data shows SOL at $104.42, down 1.71% on Oct. 20.