Solana Price Eyes New Supercycle as Devs Tease Next Chapter Goes Beyond Meme Coins

The Solana price is holding steady near the $85 support level, showing resilience as the broader market continues to struggle with a +1.3% intraday pump.

Despite struggling to regain its key $100 price level, the network’s fundamentals are screaming growth, with TVL (Total Value Locked) back up to $6.6Bn after falling to $6Bn earlier this month, per DefiLlama data.

Leaders from major Solana protocols gathering for Consensus Hong Kong 2026 have claimed that the network’s next phase will prioritise scaling beyond the meme coin sector it has become synonymous with. Could a move beyond meme coins lead to a supercycle for SOL? Some analysts seem to think so.

Currently, the Solana network has a flourishing DeFi sector, with protocols such as Jupiter, Jito, and Kamino offering yield-bearing initiatives. However, the chain needs to move beyond its meme coin reputation, following a damning 2025 report by Solidus Labs that found 98.7% of tokens launched on Pump.fun were rug pulls.

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The ghost of the 2022 FTX collapse has finally been exorcised, replaced by a maturing infrastructure layer capable of handling high-frequency institutional flows. At Consensus Hong Kong 2026, Solana ecosystem leaders argued that the “survival phase” is over.

While already having a prominent DeFi sector, with over $6.6Bn in TVL at the time of writing, the next step for Solana is to shed its tag as a meme coin chain, which became more entrenched with the launch of Pump.fun in 2024.

Another area Solana is rapidly tapping into is the tokenized asset sector. According to data tracked by AmbCrypto, Solana’s RWA (Real World Asset) ecosystem has surged to an all-time high of $1.66Bn, validating the narrative that capital is rotating into yield-bearing, tangible assets on-chain.

This shift is critical as traders look for the best altcoins to buy now during periods of market reassessment. Until now, when investors scour the Solana ecosystem, it has predominantly featured meme coins, most of which were launched via the Pump.fun launchpad.

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Ethereum Remains King While Hyperliquid is Snapping at its Heels: What does it Mean for the Solana Price?

The conversation among OG builders has moved squarely to the application layer, where value capture is expected to be highest in the coming cycle. Currently, Ethereum remains the number one network for builders and users alike, with over $54Bn in TVL, nearly 10x that of Solana.

However, Xiao Xiao Zhu of DeFi protocol Jupiter stressed that user experience is paramount, stating, “Users absolutely do not care whether an application is built on Solana or Ethereum.”

The competitive landscape remains fierce. While some analysts argue Hyperliquid may outperform Solana in 2026 due to its derivatives dominance, Solana’s developers are countering by attempting to move beyond being just a meme coin chain.

As for the Solana price, traders should monitor the $90 resistance zone closely; a breakout here, driven by rising TVL and positive ETF flows, could invalidate recent bearish structures.

Conversely, failure to hold $80 could signal deeper capitulation. While the ecosystem is expanding, comparative analysis suggests caution; some market participants believe other high-beta altcoins might offer better short-term R/R if Solana’s institutional expansion takes time to price in.

The key for the next quarter will be whether Solana can successfully onboard traditional finance liquidity without sacrificing the speed that made it famous, while also shedding its reputation as a ‘pump and dump’ chain due to the actions of Pump.fun devs over the past two years.

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