Solana outperformed the broader crypto market over the past 24 hours, rising about 1.9% to trade near $129, while the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) gained just 0.15%.
SOL advanced from roughly $126.4 to an intraday high near $130 before easing. The move followed a breakout from a narrow consolidation range on strong volume of around 2.34 million SOL, according to CoinDesk Research technical data.
The rally extended a short-term recovery that began after the token defended key support near the $127 level.
Meanwhile, on-chain activity across the Solana network has surged in recent days, driven by speculation tied to Claude Code, an AI development toolkit created by Anthropic. Developers have increasingly launched tokens linked to viral AI repositories via Bags, a Solana-based launchpad.
The increase in token launches has translated into higher network usage. Active addresses jumped from 4.7 million in early January to 18.9 million last week, while weekly transaction volumes climbed from 390 million to 530 million, according to DefiLlama.
While many of the new tokens remain speculative, some have been adopted by the original AI project teams, allowing trading fees to be redirected to developers. This has fueled a feedback loop of new launches and elevated on-chain activity.
Despite the surge in activity, Solana’s total value locked has slipped to around $8.4 billion. Technically, $130 remains a key pivot, with a sustained break higher potentially opening the door to a retest of recent highs, while a pullback could expose support in the $126–$124 range.
