Standard Chartered lowers Solana's 2026 price target to $250, but raises its long-term forecast

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Standard Chartered cut its Solana price target for the end of 2026 to $250, while raising its long-term forecasts and expecting SOL to reach $2,000 by 2030.
Analysts say the crypto market downturn has created a buying window, as market stress is driving clearer performance differentiation.
Data show that Solana is evolving from memecoin-driven activity toward stablecoin-based micropayments, though it is expected to lag behind Ethereum for several more years.

The ongoing cryptocurrency sell-off is forcing analysts to revise their price targets for leading digital assets, taking into account structural changes within their ecosystems. In a report published Tuesday, Geoffrey Kendrick, Head of Global Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered, lowered his end-2026 price target for SOL to $250 from $310.

At the same time, Kendrick said the sell-off has created a buying opportunity, adding that the current downturn marks the early stages of greater performance differentiation across the crypto sector.

According to the report, Solana is evolving “from memecoins to micropayments,” as decentralized exchange (DEX) activity increasingly shifts toward SOL–stablecoin pairs. Citing on-chain data, Kendrick noted that Solana is “no longer a single-purpose platform” driven solely by memecoin trading, as it was last year.

“When we initiated coverage of Solana in May 2025, we observed that activity on the network was largely concentrated in memecoin trading on DEXs,” Kendrick wrote.

However, this dynamic changed throughout 2025 as capital rotated away from meme-focused activity—peaking in mid-January with the launch of the Trump token—toward tokenized dollars.

“A deeper analysis of flow types on Solana DEXs shows that, alongside lower transaction volumes, the composition of DEX flows has shifted from memecoin trading toward SOL–stablecoin pairs,” Kendrick said, adding that if the trend persists, “it could point to the emergence of a new post-memecoin sector for Solana.”

Kendrick also highlighted Solana’s ultra-low transaction costs as a key enabler of new use cases, including AI-driven micropayments, which are increasingly enhancing the network’s appeal.

Repositioning will take time

The report notes that stablecoin turnover on Solana is already two to three times higher than on Ethereum, signaling the emergence of a distinct transactional role as internet-native protocols such as Coinbase-backed x402 gain traction. However, the transition is expected to take time.

Stablecoin velocity on Solana vs Ethereum. Source: Standard Chartered, The Block

Still, this shift in positioning prompted Standard Chartered to raise its long-term forecasts, projecting SOL at $400 in 2027, $700 in 2028, $1,200 in 2029, and $2,000 by the end of 2030.

At the same time, the bank reaffirmed that Ethereum remains its preferred large-cap digital asset in the near term, in line with its view that stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets will continue to be built primarily on Ethereum.

Previously, analysts said they expect Ethereum to outperform its competitors in 2026 as institutional adoption of stablecoins accelerates, while Solana’s upside is likely to shift toward a longer-term horizon as micropayment use cases mature. Over the long term, the bank expects SOL to outperform Bitcoin between 2027 and 2030.

As we wrote, Solana price prediction: Growth potential until end of 2026

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