Standard Chartered Bank Initiates Coverage of Solana (SOL), Projecting $500 Price Target by 2029

Standard Chartered Bank has initiated coverage of Solana (SOL), projecting that its native token could hit $500 by the end of 2029. However, the bank's head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, warns that SOL is likely to underperform Ethereum (ETH) over the next two to three years, due to its current overreliance on memecoin activity and the lack of a more sustainable growth engine.

Standard Chartered Bank has initiated coverage on Solana (SOL), forecasting that the token could hit $500 by the end of 2029. However, the bank's head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, warns that SOL is likely to underperform Ethereum (ETH) over the next two to three years, owing to its current overreliance on memecoin activity and the lack of a more sustainable growth engine.

Kendrick's analysis in his report highlights Solana's impressive capacity for handling high transaction volumes at low costs, as demonstrated during the peak of the memecoin frenzy earlier in 2025. At the height of the craze, over 70,000 memecoins were launched on Pump.fun on January 23. Today, that number has more than halved, signaling a cooling trend.

"If meme-related activity has peaked, then activity on Solana is unlikely to bounce back to its January 2025 peak," Kendrick wrote.

The SOL token, which reached an all-time high of $293 in mid-January, is trading at $177 at the time of writing.

Kendrick forecasts SOL will increase to $275 by the end of 2025 and reach $500 by 2029. Yet during the same period, he expects Ethereum to rise 183% to $7,500, compared to a 169% projected increase for Solana. He also anticipates the ETH-SOL ratio to rise from 14 to 17 by the end of 2027, before moderating.

Solana trades "cheap" but faces transitional phase

According to Kendrick, Solana is currently trading "cheap" relative to its application revenue, a situation exacerbated by declining usage post-memecoin boom. In contrast, platforms like BNB trade "rich" due to stronger ecosystem links, such as with Binance's centralized exchange.

Still, Kendrick believes Solana could dominate future sectors requiring high throughput and low fees, such as financial applications, social media, and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). However, scaling these sectors to become significant revenue drivers is expected to take years.

"Solana is likely to face a two- to three-year period of lower activity," Kendrick wrote, indicating that SOL may remain undervalued until new applications mature and establish a more diverse economic base.

Recent developments signal potential for long-term growth

Despite near-term headwinds, recent developments in the Solana ecosystem could support longer-term growth. At the recently concluded Solana Accelerate conference in New York, the Solana Foundation announced a strategic partnership with enterprise blockchain firm R3. The collaboration aims to integrate R3's Corda platform with Solana, potentially opening the door to institutional adoption and the tokenization of real-world assets.

Additionally, the Foundation launched the Solana Attestation Service (SAS), an open protocol that allows verifiable credentials to be linked to user wallets. These credentials facilitate secure, reusable, and privacy-preserving compliance and reputation systems across applications.

Solana Mobile also unveiled the upcoming release of the Solana Seeker smartphone, scheduled to ship on August 4. The second-generation Solana phone includes blockchain-friendly features such as a hardware vault for private keys and an integrated dApp store. Alongside this, Solana Mobile introduced SKR, a native token to support the mobile ecosystem.

CoinCodex Solana price prediction: steady growth with near-term plateau

CoinCodex's Solana price prediction aligns with a measured outlook. While the platform predicts steady price increases through 2025, it expects SOL to plateau in the $200 to $210 range during the remainder of the year. This suggests that while optimism exists for long-term gains, near-term catalysts beyond memecoins will be crucial to Solana's performance.

However, it's also worth noting that some analysts have much more ambitious price targets for Solana. Analysts at asset management firm VanEck are targeting SOL to reach as high as $520 in 2025.