Introduction
Standard Chartered has revised its Solana price target for 2026 downward to $250 while maintaining an ambitious $2,000 projection for 2030. The bank’s digital assets research team frames this adjustment as a recognition of a slower-than-expected transition from speculative trading to sustainable economic activity, even as it identifies a fundamental pivot toward stablecoin-based micropayments as the core driver for Solana’s long-term value proposition.
Key Points
- Solana's DEX activity is pivoting from memecoin trading to SOL-stablecoin pairs, indicating a shift toward payments utility rather than pure speculation.
- Stablecoin velocity on Solana is already 2-3x higher than on Ethereum, suggesting a growing niche in high-frequency, low-value transfers.
- Standard Chartered maintains an aggressive long-term price trajectory for Solana, forecasting $400 by 2027, $1,200 by 2029, and $2,000 by 2030.
A Strategic Pivot from Memecoins to Micropayments
The core of Standard Chartered’s revised outlook hinges on a significant shift in the composition of activity on the Solana network. Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s head of global digital assets research, noted that when coverage was initiated in May 2025, network activity was “largely concentrated in memecoin trading on DEXs.” This speculative burst, which Kendrick said peaked around mid-January 2025 with events like the launch of the Trump token, has since cooled. The bank’s analysis reveals a crucial rotation: the composition of decentralized exchange (DEX) flows has shifted toward SOL-stablecoin pairs.
This rotation is not merely a change in trading pairs but represents a strategic narrative transition for Solana. The implication, as Standard Chartered argues, is that Solana’s DEX activity is beginning to resemble a “payments-adjacent rail more than a single-cycle casino.” The bank ties this emerging utility to “internet-native” payment protocols and highlights Solana’s ultra-low transaction costs as a key enabler for “micropayment” use cases, including AI-driven payments, where even modest fee overhead can break unit economics.
Metrics Signaling a Distinct Role and a Slower Timeline
Supporting this thesis is a striking metric on stablecoin velocity. Kendrick stated that stablecoin turnover on Solana is already two to three times higher than on Ethereum. This data point suggests Solana may be carving out a distinct and defensible role in the crypto ecosystem for high-frequency, low-value transfers—a niche directly enabled by its cost and throughput advantages.
However, Standard Chartered tempers near-term enthusiasm with a dose of realism. The downward revision of the 2026 target from $310 to $250 reflects a “more skeptical view on how quickly Solana can convert its cost and throughput advantages into sustained, fee-generating economic activity.” The bank cautions that this strategic repositioning “will take time to translate into market leadership.” Consequently, it expects Solana to lag behind Ethereum in the 2026–2027 window, as the market undergoes a period of “performance differentiation” where assets are judged on their individual utility rather than trading as a monolithic risk asset.
An Aggressive Long-Term Trajectory Intact
Despite the near-term haircut, Standard Chartered’s longer-term price schedule remains exceptionally aggressive and unchanged. The bank projects Solana to reach $400 by 2027, $700 by 2028, $1,200 by 2029, and $2,000 by the end of 2030. This framework implies that Solana’s “micropayments phase” is expected to gain critical mass and materially impact valuation as the market cycle matures beyond 2026.
The bank’s constructive long-run view is further underscored by its comparative outlook. Kendrick projects that Solana will outperform Bitcoin over the 2027–2030 period. This forecast positions Solana not just as a competitor to smart contract platform leader Ethereum, but as an asset with a unique value driver—micropayments—that could command a premium in the later stages of the decade. At the time of the report, SOL was trading at $96.93, meaning the bank’s 2030 target implies a compound annual growth rate that reflects high conviction in this nascent use case compounding over time.
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