Standard Chartered Says “Buy Quality” as Solana Dip Opens Long-Term Outperformance Window

Standard Chartered, through its Head of FX and Digital Assets Research, Geoff Kendrick, is urging investors to view the recent digital asset selloff as an opportunity to accumulate "quality" blockchain projects, signaling a period of greater differentiation in performance.

The bank continues to favor Ethereum and Solana as its top layer-1 exposures, explicitly recommending to "Buy quality." While Standard Chartered recently lowered its 2026 price forecast for Solana (SOL) to $250 from $310 due to the time needed for its next dominant use case to mature, they raised longer-dated projections.

Standard Chartered believes Solana is positioned to dominate the micropayments space, driven by AI applications and stablecoin transactions, which are seeing faster turnover on Solana's decentralized exchanges compared to Ethereum. This shift could help Solana shed its perceived "meme coin discount." Although SOL is expected to underperform Ethereum through 2026, the bank anticipates a catch-up phase driven by utility and cost advantages thereafter. Other market commentators echoed this sentiment, viewing the current drawdown as a risk-off move that rewards investment in quality assets.

(Source：BeInCrypto)