Solana (SOL) resumed its upward trend, reaching an intraday high of $122 as the broader cryptocurrency market rally regained momentum. The token has now jumped 103% from its lowest level of the year and has more than doubled in value over the past few months as investors have continued accumulating. The rebound may continue in the near term, as the chart has formed a bullish flag pattern while spot ETF and staking inflows accelerate. Spot ETF flows are tracked closely because they capture demand routed through regulated fund products rather than direct exchange purchases, making them a widely used gauge of institutional-style appetite for a token. Below is an overview of the token's latest price action, fund flows, staking data, and network fundamentals.

ETF Inflows Keep Climbing

Data compiled by SoSoValue shows that spot Solana ETF inflows jumped by more than $271 million in September, marking the third consecutive month of net inflows and the strongest month since November of last year, when the funds added $419 million. In total, the funds have recorded over $478 million in inflows across the past three months.

Cumulative inflows since the products were approved now exceed $1.61 billion, and the funds hold more than $1.9 billion in assets. The largest Solana ETFs are offered by firms including Bitwise, Fidelity, Grayscale, and Morgan Stanley. These products give traditional investors exposure to SOL through standard brokerage accounts, without the need to manage crypto wallets or exchange accounts directly. The trend suggests that demand for Solana is rising, which is typically viewed as a bullish signal in fundamental analysis.

Staking Inflows Are Rising

Staking activity offers another sign of growing demand. Data compiled by StakingRewards shows that the amount of staked Solana has soared, pushing the network's staking ratio to nearly 70%. A ratio at that level means roughly seven in ten circulating SOL are locked into securing the network, which shrinks the supply readily available for trading. The staking market capitalization has jumped to $53 billion, equivalent to 441 million tokens.

Investors are allocating capital to Solana because of its market share in the layer-1 space and its relatively high staking rate of 5%, the annual reward paid to participants who lock tokens to help validate the network, which exceeds Ethereum's 2.6%.

Demand in the futures market also continued rising this week. According to CoinGlass, open interest jumped to over $2.7 billion, its highest level since January 19 of this year. Open interest measures the total value of outstanding derivative contracts, so a rising reading indicates that new positions are being opened faster than old ones are closed. Soaring open interest is a sign that demand among traders is in an uptrend.

Key Fundamentals Are Improving

Several indicators point to improving fundamentals for the network. In a statement on Thursday, Fiserv announced that its digital asset platform is live with leading financial institution clients in North Dakota. The first live use case is Roughrider Coin, North Dakota's dollar-backed stablecoin, which is built on Solana's network. Because dollar-pegged stablecoins are the primary vehicle for on-chain payments, a state-affiliated token building on Solana adds a real-world payments use case to the network's activity mix.

Solana is also the biggest chain by decentralized exchange (DEX) volume. Data shows that total DEX volume jumped to over $77 billion in the last 30 days, far exceeding Robinhood Chain's $55 billion and Ethereum's $43 billion. DEX volume measures trading executed directly on-chain, and it is one of the main drivers of network fees and day-to-day activity. Solana's stablecoin market capitalization has continued to rise and currently stands at more than $16 billion, with USDC holding the largest market share, a pool of dollar-pegged tokens used for trading pairs and payment flows on the chain.

Technical Analysis: Bullish Flag Forms

The daily chart shows the SOL token in an uptrend over the past few months, climbing from $60 in June to around $121. A closer look shows that the coin formed a bullish flag pattern, which consists of a strong vertical move followed by a horizontal consolidation channel. For context, this setup typically appears after a sharp rally, when price consolidates in a narrow range before continuing in the direction of the prior trend. SOL has jumped above the upper side of the pattern.

The token has also recently formed a golden cross, which occurs when the 50-day moving average crosses above the 200-day moving average, a pattern that leads to more gains over time. The Average Directional Index (ADX) has continued rising to 44, indicating strengthening trend momentum. Bulls are targeting the key resistance level of $150 the token's highest level reached in January this year. Going forward, the data points worth watching include the monthly ETF flow tallies from SoSoValue, shifts in the staking ratio, Solana's position in DEX volume rankings, and how the token behaves around the $150 resistance.

This article was originally published by The Marketical.