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Solana’s mixed signals
Solana’s 2026 cycle has been “one of its weakest on record,” with SOL closing July down 1.1% for its 10th consecutive monthly red candle, leaving holders who bought near the $250 cycle top “deep underwater.”
“SOL closed July down 1.1%, printing its 10th consecutive monthly red candle”
Bitget says Solana activated SIMD-0286 on the 29th of July, raising the compute limit from 60 to 100 million and easing fee pressure as the 90th percentile transaction fee fell 30% from 29,800 to 20,800 lamports.
The same source adds that Token Terminal data shows Solana processed 8.7 billion transactions in July, its highest monthly transaction count in four months.
Bitget frames the contrast as fundamentals strengthening even as the price chart struggles, arguing the on-chain activity is moving “in the opposite direction.”
It also points to a technical setup for SOL, saying one analyst expects SOL to form the same breakout-and-retest structure that preceded “its strongest rallies,” citing a 2,500% move in 2021 and a 3,600% rally in 2023.
Stablecoin fragmentation meets bridges
While Solana’s price action is under pressure, Cryptonews.net reports that the stablecoin market is fragmenting as fintechs, exchanges and banking groups launch their own dollar-linked tokens.
In that account, Sam MacPherson, CEO of Phoenix Labs, says the stablecoin landscape “is about to fragment more and more,” and Spark is positioned to capitalize by moving money between networks.
Cryptonews.net says Spark migrated about $150 million into Uniswap v4 pools pairing USDS against $USDT and $PYUSD, and that the system accounted for about 30% of stablecoin-to-stablecoin swap volume on Uniswap.
It also says Spark routed roughly $1.5 billion in its first 30 days, using a Uniswap v4 hook called DualPool that pulls yield into a swap “only when a swap needs it.”
Separately, CoinDesk quotes Fun CEO Alex Fine arguing that “The age of on-ramps will be completely dead and the age of external bridging sites will be dead,” as crypto apps embed payments directly into the user experience.
What comes next for crypto
CoinDesk reports that Fun powers 100% of deposits and withdrawals on Polymarket and deposit flows into Aave's largest vaults, while processing more than $3 billion in monthly transaction volume.
“Fun is a payments infrastructure company that builds the backend technology connecting traditional payment systems with blockchain networks”
The same interview frames a shift in how users experience funding, with Fine saying “People don't care about converting fiat to crypto,” and instead focusing on “taking an action inside an app.”
CoinDesk adds that prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi, along with tokenized equities platforms, continue to attract growing numbers of users and trading activity, even as the infrastructure behind deposits, withdrawals and settlement remains behind the scenes.
In that context, Fine tells CoinDesk that prediction markets today represent “perhaps 10%” of their eventual potential, and he says “As liquidity expands, you'll see millions of potential event contracts.”
Bitget, meanwhile, ties the next phase for SOL to broader market timing, noting that August and September have been Bitcoin’s weakest months and that the SOL/BTC pair continues to chop below 0.002, with a decisive breakout framed as a catalyst for a trend reversal.