Solana price stays under pressure as payments infrastructure expands
Published on 11/02/2026 at 07:06 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWSWhat Solana's latest upgrades change
- Solana was listed at 94.043 USD on the retrieved Investing.com quote page, with a market capitalization of 55.65 billion USD.
- Alpenglow went live on October 21 and targets transaction finality of about 150 milliseconds, although that figure is not guaranteed for every payment.
- Polygon added Solana to its Open Money Stack on October 29, linking Solana-based businesses with bank funding, stablecoin routing and fiat payouts.
The Solana price was listed at 94.043 USD on the retrieved Investing.com quote page. The same page showed a market capitalization of 55.65 billion USD, 24-hour volume of 1.42 billion USD, circulating supply of 590.15 million SOL and a 52-week range of 60.2 to 188.982 USD. These figures provide a market snapshot, but the page did not establish a UTC day-close comparison for November 2, so no daily percentage change is assigned here.
Consensus upgrade is now live
Solana's most significant recent protocol event was the activation of Alpenglow on October 21. Galaxy Research reported that the upgrade changed Solana's consensus protocol and designed transactions to reach finality in roughly 150 milliseconds, compared with about 12 seconds under the previous TowerBFT system.
The change moves validator voting offchain through the first Alpenglow phase, known as Votor, which can free blockspace previously used for vote transactions. However, the 150-millisecond figure is a design target rather than a guaranteed result for every transaction. CoinDesk also noted that wallets, fees and applications remain unchanged, while network dashboards may show lower transaction counts because validator votes are no longer recorded as blockchain transactions.
Payments add a second catalyst
On October 29, Polygon announced that its Open Money Stack now supports Solana. According to Polygon, businesses building on Solana can accept bank, card, cash or crypto deposits, convert fiat into assets on Solana, route supported tokens across networks and pay out to bank accounts, cards, cash services or wallets.
The integration does not merge the two blockchains. Instead, it gives Solana-based businesses access to payment and banking connections through one integration. Polygon said that supported assets include USDC, USDT, PYUSD, SOL and wrapped SOL, while Kira is among the early users. The development strengthens the payments narrative around the Solana price, but it does not by itself demonstrate transaction growth, fee revenue or adoption attributable to the new service.
Adoption remains the key test
For investors, the combination of faster settlement and broader payment access improves Solana's infrastructure case. The more difficult question is whether developers, merchants and financial applications use those capabilities at scale. Until that evidence emerges, SOL remains exposed to the broader volatility of the crypto market, and technical progress should be treated as potential utility rather than a forecast of token performance.
More reporting and analysis are available on the Solana topic page.
