at Solana The memecoin-driven reputation could soon give way to a larger role in digital payments, according to a new report from Standard Chartered’s head of crypto research Kendrick Geoffrey.
Given SOL’s recent fall to the $100 level, Kendrick reduced his price forecast for SOL from $310 to $250 by the end of 2026. Kenrick remains a bull, however, eyeing a path to $2,000 by 2030, fueled by Solana’s growing role in stablecoin-based micropayments.
The bank describes Solana as going beyond its “one-trick pony” image. In 2025, almost half of Solana’s protocol fees came from trading memecoins on decentralized exchanges. But data now shows a shift in trade flows – from meme tokens to SOL-stablecoin pairs – which suggests new uses are emerging. Stablecoin turnover on Solana now far exceeds that of Ethereum pointing to a different type of activity: high-frequency, low-cost transactions.
One example is x402, a platform created by Coinbase (COIN) to support AI-driven small-scale payments using stablecoins. The average transaction on x402 is only six cents. Base, Coinbase’s own layer 2 network on Ethereum, has hosted most of the volume so far, but its fees may be too high for long-term viability. Solana’s lower gas fees — often less than a penny — make it better suited for such applications, Geoffrey said.
Micropayments, often unviable in traditional finance due to fixed fees per transaction, could unlock new types of Internet services, from machine-to-machine payments to social apps with built-in pay-as-you-go features. Solana’s technical strengths position it to serve as a backend for this type of infrastructure.
Standard Chartered also highlights growing institutional interest. Since October 2025, the Bitwise BSOL ETF has absorbed 78% of all net inflows into SOL-related ETFs, bringing more than 1% of the total ETF supply under management, according to Geoffrey. Meanwhile, digital asset treasuries now hold almost 3% of SOL.
Kendrick’s revised targets now project SOL at $400 in 2027, $700 in 2028, and $1,200 in 2029.
