Saad Ullah
Upexi's massive SOL buying spree and bold analyst calls are fueling excitement around Solana, with some expecting the token to hit $400-$500 this cycle.
Solana's SOL token is making waves again, trading just under $200 as institutional money pours in and analysts get bullish. The sixth-largest crypto by market cap is seeing some serious accumulation from corporate players, while technical indicators suggest bigger moves ahead.
SOL Gets Major Institutional Backing from Upexi
Nasdaq-listed Upexi just dropped some major news - they've scooped up another 100,000 SOL tokens, bringing their total stash to 1,818,809 SOL worth around $331 million. That's a pretty hefty bet on Solana's future.
The company raised $200 million through equity and convertible notes to fund this buying spree, marking their third capital raise since they started their SOL strategy back in April. What's smart about their approach is that they bought more than half of these tokens at a discount in locked form, banking them an unrealized gain of $58 million.
Nearly all their SOL is now staked, which means they're looking at up to $26 million in annual rewards based on the current 8% staking rate. That's some serious passive income while they wait for price appreciation.
Upexi CEO Allan Marshall calls this "a first-of-its-kind model for altcoin treasury management in public markets." The company even created a new metric called "Basic mNAV" to track how their market cap compares to their SOL holdings. As of July 18, they're trading at 1.2x their SOL net asset value.
Analyst Sees SOL Breaking Out to $500
The corporate buying comes alongside some pretty bullish calls from crypto analysts. Popular trader "Christiaan" recently posted on X that Solana "is ready for a massive pump" and could hit $400 to $500 in this bull market.
That's a bold call considering SOL is currently trading at $198.33, up just 0.26% in the last 24 hours. But zoom out a bit and the picture looks different - SOL has rallied 20% this week, 30% over two weeks, and a whopping 47.6% this month, making it one of the best performers among major cryptos.
SOL Technical Picture Shows Mixed Signals
Looking at the technicals, SOL has been pretty volatile lately. According to CoinDesk Research data, the token traded in an $11.48 range from July 22 to July 23, hitting a high of $205.99 before pulling back.
Volume spiked to 3.77 million units on July 22, creating strong resistance around $203.81. But SOL also dropped from $200.04 to $198.95 in the final hour, breaking below that key $200 level as some institutional selling kicked in.
The combination of Upexi's aggressive accumulation, bullish analyst calls, and recent price momentum has SOL watchers excited about what's next. With institutional players like Upexi treating SOL as a treasury asset and analysts calling for massive gains, the token could be setting up for its next big move.
Whether SOL can actually hit those $400-$500 targets remains to be seen, but the current setup certainly has bulls feeling optimistic about Solana's prospects in this market cycle.
Saad Ullah
