I predict that by the end of 2026, Solana's (SOL 0.68%) price will be at or more than $200, which means I'm predicting that it will rise about 48% (or more) given its current price of about $135. The coin has already cleared that level before in the past couple of years, and the drivers affecting its price are going to be even more potent than before.
Let's examine why my target is plausible and what's likely to cause it to play out over the course of this year.
Image source: Getty Images.
The chain has more draws for big capital inflows than ever before
In late 2025, spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) began trading in the U.S. after receiving a green light from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and they're one of the most important factors to understand in terms of the coin's price performance this year. As the ETF issuers experience demand from their customers for shares of their Solana ETFs, they will need to purchase more of the coin to back the new shares they issue to meet the demand. So, the ETFs establish a mechanism through which investors in the traditional financial system can allocate their capital into Solana, which was fairly difficult for them to do without a crypto wallet before. More than $61 million has flowed into the ETFs since mid-December of 2025 alone, and that's probably just the start.
The second mechanism that will likely drive the coin's price higher is that Solana increasingly looks like a place where people provide and pay for services, both of which require buying and holding the coin to pay for transactions. In the 24-hour period of Jan. 5 alone, decentralized applications (dApps) on the chain generated more than $4 million in revenue, a sum that's been steadily increasing over time. Especially if innovation continues to spawn more revenue-generating projects in its ecosystem, the network's value is thus likely to continue to increase.
CRYPTO: SOL
Key Data Points
Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is a third tailwind; Solana hosts about $863 million of tokenized assets distributed on its chain, giving it a small but real foothold in a market that is still forming. Assuming that more financial companies see cost and speed advantages in transitioning their asset management processes to Solana, it should lead to even more capital inflows, and require them to hold and spend Solana to do what they want.
Don't get too fixated on the exact number here
Price targets aren't meant to be taken literally, and there's no guarantee that my $200 mark will prove to be perfectly accurate. There are a couple of things that might end up making my estimate off by more than a ballpark.
First, ETF flows can cut both ways, as a new channel for buyers is also a new channel for exits. If sentiment turns bearish, the existence of the ETFs won't necessarily stop Solana's price from falling.
A larger threat is that there's a newly expanded class action lawsuit directed at Solana-affiliated entities and executives, as well as one of the important projects in the network's ecosystem. The plaintiffs are alleging that those individuals created a system in which investors participating in the launches of new meme coins were subjected to unfair practices despite the appearance of fairness. If the plaintiffs win, it will badly tarnish the network's reputation, hurt the coin's price, and probably damage at least a few of its revenue-bearing projects, so it would be pretty bearish overall.
Nonetheless, given that such lawsuits tend to take a long time to conclude and the plaintiffs winning is not in any way a sure thing, Solana hitting $200 by the end of 2026 is still the base case. As the lawsuit grinds on, the chain will experience capital inflows from multiple sources, and new upgrades to its platform tech may be on the way too. This isn't a coin that I would recommend to everyone anymore because of the new risks on the radar, but it's one that I will still be buying some of, and it's worth holding for at least the next few years regardless of what its price does during the next 12 months.
