A suspected Solana whale has transferred 482,228 SOL worth $49.17m from three newly created wallets over three days, with about a third already deposited on cryptocurrency exchanges.
The wallets were created on the evening of 23 October. Their first transactions took place within two minutes of each other, but no individual or organisation has claimed ownership. Blockchain intelligence platform Arkham lists them simply as wallet A, wallet B and wallet C.
On-chain analysts connected the addresses earlier on 27 October, suggesting they may belong to the same holder and that the transfers were intended for selling.
According to Lookonchain, 171,430 SOL worth about $17.3m has already been sent to various exchanges. The tokens have been moved steadily rather than in one large transaction.
Splitting holdings between fresh addresses and transferring them in smaller batches is a commonly used method to limit slippage and reduce the risk of unsettling exchange order books.
Solscan records showed that all three wallets were still sending transactions as of 04:20 UTC on 27 October.
The addresses held approximately 96,743 SOL, 97,639 SOL and 97,312 SOL respectively a few hours earlier. Together, that amounts to about 291,700 SOL, valued at roughly $29m at current prices.
Their near-identical balances suggest the transfers may have followed a planned structure. If the same pattern continues, the remaining $29m could be the next portion sent to exchanges.
SOL was trading at $99.89, down 5% over seven days, 17% over 30 days and 51% over the past year. It is about 66% below its record price of $293.31, reached on 19 January 2025.
The token’s ability to remain above $100 is also being closely watched. Manifold’s market on whether SOL will close above that level on 31 October opened on 20 October, when SOL was priced close to $104, with a 63% probability.
Broader market conditions have added pressure. Bitcoin was hovering around $79,590, almost 6% lower over the past month. Bitcoin.com News reported that bitcoin was holding near $80,000 while most moving averages were pointing towards a bearish trend.
When bitcoin stops rising, higher-beta assets such as SOL can experience sharper declines.
There are, however, factors supporting demand. About 71% of SOL in circulation is staked, reducing the amount readily available for selling. Circle has minted $112bn in USDC on Solana so far in 2026, almost twice the total for all of 2025.
Institutional activity has also continued, with JPMorgan recently bringing tokenized money funds to Solana for US investors.
The network faces challenges as well. A Solana trading bot was recently hacked for nearly $1m, while BNB Chain recently exceeded Solana in tokenized equity volume.
Bloom Trading lost nearly $1m in a security breach that drained 49 cryptocurrency wallets belonging to nine users.
