Solana Price Surge Ahead? How Institutional Demand Could Flip the Script on Bearish Sentiment

Solana's price action has traders split—can whales and institutions overpower the bears?

Institutional money floods in as SOL tests key levels. The 'Ethereum killer' narrative gets fresh oxygen from hedge funds and crypto VCs piling into its high-speed ecosystem. Meanwhile, retail traders eye the charts like Wall Street analysts scrutinizing a meme stock.

Technical squeeze or fundamental shift? Solana's proof-of-history mechanism keeps ticking faster than traditional finance's quarterly reporting cycles. But with every institutional dollar comes the age-old crypto question: Are they building or just trading?

Cynical take: Nothing makes institutions FOMO harder than a blockchain that processes transactions faster than they can draft their 'risk-adjusted returns' PowerPoints.

Solana (SOL) price experienced heightened bearish sentiment during the second quarter and has since approached a crucial crossroads. The large-cap altcoin, with a fully diluted valuation of about $92.3 billion and a 24-hour average traded volume of around $4.6 billion, dropped around 3.2 percent in the last 30 days to trade at about $152.83 on Thursday, July 3, during the mid-North American trading session.

Consequently, the SOL price has consistently closed below the 50-weekly Moving Average (MA) for the larger part since March. From a technical analysis standpoint, the SOL price has been forming a potential head and shoulders (H&S) pattern coupled with bearish divergence of the weekly Relative Strength Index (RSI). 

The midterm bearish sentiment will be invalidated if the SOL price consistently closes above the resistance level around $189. In such a scenario, the SOL price will be aiming to reach a new all-time high in the NEAR future.

Solana Network Gets Strong Support from DeFi Development

The solana network has recorded exponential growth in the number of institutional investors adopting its services or as a form of treasury management. Additionally, the increased engagement between the U.S. SEC and the fund managers seeking to offer spot SOL ETFs signals an imminent approval in the near future, which suggests rising demand from institutional investors.

On Thursday, DeFi Development Corp. (NASDAQ: DFDV) announced the resumption of Solana coin acquisition to bolster its treasury portfolio. The company announced the acquisition of 17,760 Solana coins for about $2.72 million. As a result, DeFi Development now holds 640,585 SOL coins, which are valued at about $98 million.