Solana recently broke through the $240 resistance level, with institutional investors driving momentum.

Solana has seen renewed momentum, pushing through major resistance levels and drawing attention from institutional buyers. On Tuesday, September 16, SOL traded at $234.85, having corrected from the eight-month high of $249.12 it reached two days earlier.

Despite the correction, Solana’s (SOL) institutional momentum continued. On September 15, Helius Medical Technology unveiled a $500 million treasury strategy, financed through a private equity offering. Notably, the move sent its shares up 140%.

Moreover, on September 16, Dan Morehead, the founder of Pantera Capital, revealed that the investment firm allocated as much as $1.1 billion to SOL. He explained that Solana is the firm’s biggest bet, viewing it as the most promising among blockchain networks.

Solana memecoins see a major rally

At the same time, Solana is seeing a significant uptick in DeFi activity, largely due to memecoins. Solana-based Pump.fun once again broke $1 billion in daily volume, which coincided with a broader rally in the memecoin market.

For instance, Pudgy Penguins (PENGU), currently the largest Solana memecoins, were up 4.0% on September 16. The memecoin reached $0.03381 per coin and a market cap of $2.1 billion. At the same time, Bonk (BONK) was up 3.9%.

With markets expecting Federal Reserve rate cuts to be imminent, risk assets are among the biggest beneficiaries. This applies both to Solana and to memecoins. At the same time, with Bitcoin near its all-time highs, traders are increasingly cycling into altcoins to chase bigger gains.

For Solana, this creates a boon on two levels, both directly through its price and indirectly by boosting its DeFi activity and total value locked.