Solana reclaims $80: Assessing if $18M whale long can spark SOL’s rally

Nearly two-thirds of top traders backed higher prices.

Written by Erastus Chami

Reviewed by Renuka Tahelyani

Updated 13:00 EDT July 3, 2026

A newly funded wallet attracted market attention after opening a 20x leveraged long worth 230,583 SOL, valued at $18.81 million.

The position quickly generated more than $818,000 in unrealized profit within a day, highlighting how rapidly SOL rewarded aggressive bullish exposure.

Lookonchain’s data also showed the whale’s liquidation price was $67.14, leaving a sizeable buffer below current trading levels.

However, the trade also reflected growing confidence among leveraged participants rather than confirming SOL’s next market direction. Large positions often influence sentiment, yet they rarely guarantee sustained rallies.

Why did top traders stay heavily long?

Binance data showed that 64.71% of top trader accounts held long positions, while only 35.29% remained short.

This distribution lifted the Long/Short Ratio to 1.83, confirming that professional traders had maintained a clear bullish bias.

The positioning also aligned with the newly opened whale trade, reinforcing expectations that higher prices could follow if buyers retain control.

However, concentrated bullish exposure also increased downside vulnerability because leveraged positions shared similar liquidation levels.

A modest decline could force highly leveraged longs to close automatically, accelerating selling pressure.

Even so, the data suggested experienced traders had continued favoring upside exposure despite recent market uncertainty.

Solana reclaim resistance as buyers regain control

Solana [SOL] recovered above the former resistance at $78.50 and traded near $81.30, confirming that buyers had regained control after defending the $67.39 support zone.

Price also approached the next resistance around $88.10, placing the recovery within a broader rebound rather than a completed breakout.

Meanwhile, the 14-day RSI climbed to 64.41, remaining comfortably above its 50.60 signal average.

That improvement indicated strengthening buying pressure without reaching overbought territory above 70.

The recent advance also produced a sequence of higher lows after June’s sharp decline, reinforcing the recovery structure.

However, SOL still needed to reclaim $88.10 before opening the path toward the major resistance near $100.87, where sellers had repeatedly regained control during previous rallies.

Can the $80 liquidity zone spark chaos?

The Liquidation Heatmap identified the largest concentration of leveraged liquidity around $80. This places the biggest liquidation pocket less than 2% below SOL’s market price.

The positioning created a fragile setup because any decisive break beneath support could rapidly increase selling pressure.

If bears force a 5% decline over the weekend, SOL would likely fall toward $77.20, sweeping through the $80 liquidity cluster before reaching additional liquidation pockets below.

Such a move could trigger cascading long liquidations as leveraged positions closed automatically and added fresh sell orders into the market.

Since 64.71% of Binance’s top trader accounts already held long positions, crowded bullish exposure increased the probability that losing $80 would amplify volatility instead of producing an orderly correction.

Can SOL defend $80 and continue higher?

SOL appeared more likely to extend its recovery than suffer an immediate rejection because it had already reclaimed $80 and continued attracting aggressive leveraged positioning.

However, that bullish structure depended on holding the $80 support.

Since the largest liquidation cluster sat directly beneath the current price, a break below that level could quickly trigger cascading long liquidations.

Unless bears forced SOL below $80, the path toward $88.10 remained the more probable near-term outcome.