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Points of Focus
- Solana traded at $100.13, up nearly 3% in 24 hours after the Fed’s 25 bps rate hike.
- The 250ms upgrade is set for Sept. 18, cutting mainnet slot time from 300ms.
- SOL futures volume near $7.06 billion remains more than nine times tracked spot volume.
Solana (SOL) returned to the $100 mark on Thursday, trading at $100.13 at the time of writing and gaining 2.9% over 24 hours despite the Federal Reserve’s first rate hike since 2023.
SOL has recovered from a Sept. 15 low of $95.82, but the rebound comes with futures activity far outweighing spot volume and less than a day before Solana’s next slot-time reduction reaches mainnet.
Solana holds $100 after Fed rate hike
The Fed raised its target range by 25 basis points to 3.75%-4.00% on Sept. 16. Its updated projections put the median year-end 2026 federal funds rate at 4.1%, pointing to another quarter-point increase if the median path holds.
SOL fell as low as $95.82 on Sept. 15 before recovering above $100 on Thursday. The rebound has erased much of that drop, though the Fed’s projected rate path keeps monetary conditions tighter than markets faced before the meeting.
Derivatives activity adds a counterpoint. CoinGlass showed about $5.92 billion in SOL open interest and $7.06 billion in 24-hour futures volume, compared with roughly $757 million in tracked spot volume.
Futures turnover was more than nine times spot activity, meaning leveraged trading remains a large part of the current move around $100.
Solana 250ms upgrade targets lower latency
Solana developer Anza said the 250ms slot-time feature is pending on mainnet-beta and is scheduled to take effect at the epoch 1037 boundary around 05:01 UTC on Sept. 18.
250ms slots activation now pending on mainnet-beta.
400 → 350 → 300 → 250ms
Reminder, SIMD-0525 features take effect one epoch after they activate thus will go live at the epoch 1037 boundary ~05:01 UTC, Friday Sept 18.
– epoch 1035: pending activation
– epoch 1036: feature…— Anza (@anza_xyz) September 16, 2026
The change lowers Solana’s target slot time from 300ms to 250ms, a 16.7% reduction, after earlier stages cut it from 400ms to 350ms and then 300ms. Shorter slots reduce confirmation latency and shorten the period each leader controls block production.
The SIMD-0525 proposal also reduces per-slot work limits in proportion to the shorter slot time, keeping the wall-clock processing rate roughly unchanged.
The 250ms upgrade cuts confirmation time, but per-slot work limits will also fall. That means the 16.7% reduction in slot time should not be read as a 16.7% increase in transaction throughput.
Institutional flows have remained modest ahead of activation. Farside recorded $11 million of Solana ETF inflows on Sept. 14, $1.3 million on Sept. 15 and $0.8 million on Sept. 16.
The 250ms slot time is scheduled to take effect at epoch 1037 at approximately 05:01 UTC on Sept. 18.
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