20 days of Grayscale buying, one day of VanEck selling: Solana at $103

Solana costs $102.99, or 91.79 euros, on Thursday morning, October 15. That is 3.8 percent less than 24 hours earlier, and over seven days it leaves a loss of 10.4 percent. The figure alone explains little. More revealing is who buys and who sells at this level, because that is where the market's biggest addresses are visibly pulling in two directions.

Solana price at $102.99: where things stand on Thursday morning

The market data come from CoinGecko. The daily high was $107.74, the daily low $101.04. Solana thus weighs in at $60.7 billion and ranks seventh among the largest cryptocurrencies. In 24 hours, $4.10 billion changed hands. Of a total 635.84 million SOL, 589.27 million are in circulation.

Over longer horizons the picture turns contradictory, and that is exactly where the tension of this week sits. Over 30 days Solana is up 2.6 percent, over 60 days 36.6 percent. Over a year, by contrast, 49.8 percent is missing, and 64.9 percent separates the price from its peak of $293.31 on January 19, 2025. October has cost more than 13 percent so far. Anyone who entered in August is sitting on a clear gain; anyone who bought a year ago on half their stake.

Grayscale has been buying for 20 days, VanEck is selling

Among the US spot ETFs on Solana, a pattern has emerged over the past three weeks that was not there before. According to data from the analytics firm Arkham, Grayscale's GSOL fund has taken in $20.2 million of SOL across 20 days, with a single outflow day in between. On October 12, a day on which Grayscale gave up nothing, VanEck sold around $700,000 through its VSOL fund.

A spot ETF does not buy out of conviction. It mirrors what its shareholders do: subscribe to units and you trigger a purchase in the market, redeem them and you trigger a sale. That one provider adds for 20 days while another gives up therefore proves no special knowledge at Grayscale. It shows that the two houses' client bases are currently acting differently. Grayscale traditionally serves long-term holders who come from the older trust product, VanEck more active allocators with a shorter horizon.

For the price it remains a zero-sum game with a sign attached. As long as the sum across all funds is negative, they are net sellers into a falling market, regardless of how convinced individual providers are as they accumulate.

Eighth straight day of outflows: what the ETF figures measure

Summed across all providers, the Solana ETFs saw outflows on Wednesday for the eighth trading day in a row, most recently $1.29 million. In the week of October 5 to 9 they had lost $24.81 million net, according to figures from SosoValue, ending a run of 14 weeks of inflows. Our report of October 11 has already covered that week.

What has changed since is the length of the run, not its size. At $4.10 billion in daily turnover, $1.29 million in a day is not an amount that moves a price. The duration is the signal: eight trading days without a single inflow day mean that no fresh money is currently arriving via the fund route. That route is precisely what carried the price in August and September.

$97.95 and the 50-day line at 107: this week's levels

On the chart, Solana turned at the 50-day line at $107.13 on Wednesday and fell back from there. That line has stopped every attempt at recovery since the start of October. To the downside, market observers name $97.95 as the next catching line, just below the round 100.

The round number itself was discussed in our article of October 14, at $103.82 at the time. The price has fallen by just under a dollar since, the 100 has held, and the daily low of $101.04 has tested it once. What is new is the direction of the pressure: no downside break is pending, but a third rejection at the 107 line from above.

The analyst 0xSweep points to a bullish divergence in the four-hour chart and compares it with a constellation near $96 that was followed by a move up to $124. That is a single opinion with one comparable case, not a law. The relative strength index stood at 38.28 on October 13, below its average of 41.72, so in the lower range but not yet where traders speak of oversold.

USDC on Solana: $3.5 billion newly minted in seven days

While the price falls, use of the blockchain is picking up. The data service SolanaFloor reported on October 12 that around $3.5 billion of USDC had been newly issued on Solana within seven days, in repeated tranches of $250 million each. That is the largest weekly issuance on this blockchain this year. USDC holdings on Solana now stand at about $8.64 billion, and over 30 days new issuance adds up to more than $10 billion. The individual mints can be traced in the Solscan block explorer.

A mint means the issuer Circle has accepted dollars and issued tokens in return. That money then sits on the blockchain and waits for a use, whether trading, payment or custody. It is not a buy order for SOL, but it is liquidity that can flow into Solana applications without a detour through an exchange.

Total holdings of all stablecoins on Solana reached a peak of $17.3 billion in September, as measured by Solana Compass and DeFiLlama. This is where the apparent contradiction with our report of October 11, which described a 6.4 percent decline in reserves, resolves itself: total holdings can fall while a single currency gains. That is exactly what has happened, with USDC winning share against the other dollar tokens on the same blockchain.

Tokenised equities: $786.3 million in volume and first place after 13 weeks

The second area where Solana is gaining ground is tokenised equities. In the week of October 5 to 11, the blockchain settled $786.3 million of spot volume in this segment according to figures from SolanaFloor, putting it back in front for the first time in 13 weeks. Behind it came Robinhood with $663.0 million, BNB Chain with $623.3 million and Base with $445.5 million. Ethereum reached $12.0 million, HyperCore $7.9 million. Of the $2.54 billion across all the venues named, around 31 percent therefore fell to Solana.

A product launch provided the impetus. On October 8, the issuer Securitize brought twelve tokenised US equities to Solana, among them Apple, Nvidia and Tesla. According to the company, each token is backed one-to-one by a real share, settlement is in USDC, and Jump Trading acts as market maker. CoinDesk described the structure and legal form in detail on the day of the launch.

For investors in Germany this part is for now an observation and not an offer. Securitize speaks of eligible investors in the US, the EU and other approved markets, but does not define the term more closely. Anyone wanting to acquire tokenised equities needs a provider in the EU with the appropriate MiFID II authorisation, and a decentralised exchange does not hold one.

Alpenglow on October 21: Firedancer and Frankendancer are not joining the migration

On October 21 the Alpenglow consensus protocol starts on mainnet beta, a date confirmed by the core developers at Anza. Alpenglow replaces the existing interplay of Tower BFT and Proof of History with a procedure meant to shorten considerably the time to a block's final confirmation. Final confirmation means the point from which an entry can no longer be reversed.

One footnote to the schedule matters now. The validator software Firedancer and its intermediate stage Frankendancer do not support the initial changeover. Operators running these clients have to switch temporarily for the transition. That affects a relevant share of network capacity and, indirectly, everyone who has delegated their SOL to one of these operators. crypto.news has gathered the details.

At present, 438.97 million SOL are delegated according to data from Staking Rewards, 74.6 percent of the circulating supply, at a yield of around 4.92 percent a year. If you have delegated, you can ask your validator which client it will run on October 21. Should a validator fail during the changeover, the delegator misses that epoch's rewards, while the balance itself is unaffected.

ETFs in the US, ETPs in Germany: the difference in access

The fund flows discussed above arise in the US. A German retail investor cannot buy the spot ETFs there, because they lack the key information document required under the PRIIPs Regulation. The route in this country runs through exchange-traded cryptoassets, usually structured as an ETP or ETN and tradable via Xetra. These securities are physically backed with SOL, but legally they are debt instruments and therefore set up differently from a fund with segregated assets.

In practice that means: the costs sit in the annual flat fee and in the bid-ask spread, and both differ between venue and time of day. In thin market phases such as this week, the spread widens. If you intend to buy anyway, place the order between 15:30 and 17:30, when US trading is running and spreads are tightest. An overview of the trading venues helps with comparing fees.

Staking, the holding period and December 31

For tax purposes in Germany, section 23 of the Income Tax Act applies: a sale within one year of the purchase is a private disposal, after that the gain remains tax-free. In a circular of May 10, 2022, the Federal Ministry of Finance clarified that staking does not extend this period to ten years; it stays at one year even then.

With an annual loss of 49.8 percent, that leads to a calculation which suggests itself. Losses from a sale within the one-year period can be offset against gains from other private disposals in the same year. Sell a position at a loss after the year has elapsed and the loss cannot be used for tax, because the transaction falls outside the period. The cut-off date for offsetting is December 31. The purchase dates of individual positions are in the exchange's transaction report or can be compiled with a portfolio tracker. This is no substitute for tax advice.

Stake instead and you take the 4.92 percent as running income. These rewards count as other income under section 22 no. 3 and are taxable from 256 euros a year, in the year they are received, regardless of whether the SOL are later sold at a profit or a loss.

Our assessment: the price is not following network load right now

In the view of our editorial team, this week's figures show a decoupling that can be named. On one side stands the price: minus 10.4 percent in seven days, eight consecutive outflow days at the funds, a third rejection at the 107 line. On the other stand $3.5 billion of freshly minted USDC in the same week, $786.3 million of volume in tokenised equities and a protocol change with a fixed date.

What argues against reading this decoupling as a case for buying: minted USDC is liquidity and no evidence of demand for SOL, and the volume in tokenised equities accrues mainly at the trading venues, not at the token. On top of that, DEX volume on Solana has been declining lately, with $12.88 billion over seven days meaning 27.0 percent less than in the previous week. So network load is not growing across the board, it is shifting. The only robust statement is that fund flows are currently setting the short-term direction and the usage data are not supporting it.

Solana at $103: the next week is decided above 107

Three things are concrete in the coming days:

1. October 21. If you have delegated SOL, ask your validator about the client. If you want to judge the reward independently of the operator, the terms are in our overview of staking platforms and at Staking Rewards.
2. The 107 line. Only a daily close above it ends the run of rejections. Until then, $97.95 remains the next catching line to the downside.
3. The purchase date in your portfolio. If you want to close or add to a position, check it first against the one-year period and against the December 31 cut-off.

(As of October 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)