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Solana (SOL) has climbed back to around $80.84 even as traders cut their leverage, and Solana TVL has reached its highest level since early June, a sign real money is backing the move.
Deposits into Solana apps and buying from long-term holders are rising while futures positioning shrinks. That combination points to spot demand rather than borrowed bets.
On July 4, SOL traded near $82 with open interest, the total value of active futures contracts, around $2.41 billion. Its funding rate, a small fee that shows whether traders lean long or short, sat positive at 0.009%, a mark of crowded long bets.
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That positioning unwound when the market dipped, flushing leveraged longs and pulling SOL to about $79.72 on July 6, close to a 3% drop. A squeeze like that forces overstretched buyers to sell, but it also clears out fragile bets.
Since then, open interest has eased to about $2.20 billion and funding has cooled to 0.004%. Even so, the SOL price recovered to $80.84, so the bid now looks spot-driven rather than borrowed.
Rallies built on leverage tend to reverse fast once funding flips. A move that strengthens while open interest falls usually has real demand behind it.
The recovery lines up with steady buying from Solana's most patient wallets. Holders who have kept SOL for one to two years grew their share of supply from 14.64% to 15.60% since June 29. Holder conviction here comes from HODL Waves, an on-chain metric that groups Solana's supply into cohorts by how long the coins have been held.
This cohort added coins through the shakeout rather than selling into it, marking the largest accumulation in weeks.
Because these long-term holders keep buying through volatility, the pool of coins available to sell keeps shrinking. That absorption helps explain why the July 4 flush did not deepen.
The same conviction shows up in Solana TVL, or total value locked, the amount of money deposited across the network's apps. It climbed about 10% from $4.66 billion on June 26 to about $5.11 billion on July 4, also its highest since early June.
Crucially, that Solana DeFi TVL kept rising while open interest fell, and it held the high through the price dip. Capital is flowing into apps, not leverage into futures.
The deposit growth began around late June, the same window long-term holders started adding. That overlap suggests the two trends share a source, steady conviction rather than a quick trade.
Stablecoin supply on Solana strengthens the case. It sits around $15.6 billion, just below the roughly $16 billion peak set on July 3, leaving dry powder that can fund more buying if demand holds. The stablecoin supply still remains higher than late June levels.
Together, the leverage reset, holder accumulation, and rising Solana TVL point one way. The move rests on deposits and patient buyers, not funding, which gives it a firmer base than a leveraged bounce. More so when the Solana price is up over 9% in the weekly timeframe. Whether it lasts may show first in TVL (network health) and holder flows (on-chain conviction).
