Solana price jumps 7% as Visa outlines plan to use SOL blockchain for USDC payments

• Solana price is up almost 7% in the last 24 hours, with the mean threshold of $19.15 providing support.
• The surge follows a recent announcement indicating Visa's move to pilot stablecoin-transaction merchants via Solana blockchain.  
• SOL could rise 10% to confront the $22.09 resistance level, with TVL rising over $2 million, hours following the news.
• Invalidation of this bullish outlook would occur upon a decisive daily candlestick close below the $18.41 level.

Solana (SOL) price has stayed glued to monthly lows over the past week despite an influx of funds from institutional players reaching up to $700,000. This capital inflow and a steady rise in Total Value Locked (TVL) failed to catalyze an uptrend for SOL, but things seem to have changed following a recent announcement.

Also Read: Solana price fails to gather momentum despite rising institutional flows, MakerDAO likely adoption.

Solana price rises on Visa announcement

Solana (SOL) price is up 7%, with indications of a continued rally, coming on the back of a recent announcement from digital payments company Visa. Based on the announcement, Visa has outlined a plan to leverage the Solana blockchain for its payments services. Specifically, it will scale its USDC stablecoin settlement capabilities to merchant acquirers launching pilots with select firms.

Visa to leverage Solana blockchain for stablecoin settlement on its cross-border payments

Two weeks after Shopify integrated Solana to its platform for crypto payments, Visa has also joined in, expanding its "stablecoin settlement capabilities to merchant acquirers launching pilots with Worldpay Global and Nuvei. Citing Head of Crypto Visa Cuy Sheffield on Businesswire:

By leveraging stablecoins like USDC and global blockchain networks like Solana and Ethereum, we're helping to improve the speed of cross-border settlement and providing a modern option for our clients to send or receive funds from Visa's treasury easily.

The move is part of Visa's commitment to "being on the forefront of digital currency and blockchain innovation," which explains the payments company's decision to leverage new technologies to help improve the way money moves.

Noteworthy, Visa is building atop a 2021 vision where they tested Circle's USDC stablecoin could serve within its treasury operations, leading to a pilot with Crypto.com. Citing Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire on the latest development:

We are excited about the USDC use cases Visa and its partners are driving to create fundamental blockchain innovation… Circle built USDC to provide a functional digital dollar that could move at the speed of the internet to facilitate secure, reliable payments. Expanding the pilot exemplifies how pairing USDC with Visa's innovation opens up the future of payments, commerce, and financial applications.

On September 4, Ripple Attorney John E. Deaton joined crypto enthusiast Faisal Khan to hint at a possible announcement from Circle's Allaire. Read the full story here and its impact on USDC stablecoin.

Visa's decision to leverage Solana as a high-performance blockchain qualifies the payments company among pioneers leveraging Solana for live settlement payments between its clients.

Impact of integration on SOL token

The Solana-Visa partnership has boded well for the SOL token, with DeFiLlama indicating a $2 million surge in Total Value Locked (TVL) on the blockchain within a matter of hours. More accurately, Solana TVL moved from $305.75 million, as seasoned crypto analyst and reporter at FXStreet Ekta Mourya indicated earlier, to the current $307.74 million.

Solana TVL

For the layperson, a rise in TVL indicates that user deposits are rising, which, in this case, points to user interest in the Solana blockchain.

Furthermore, the announcement seems to have ignited a renaissance for Solana price, which is up almost 7% in the last 24 hours, breaking from consolidation around the monthly lows of $19.15 to the current $20.36.

Increased buying pressure could send Solana price above the $22.09 resistance level, a formidable hurdle that suppressed SOL for the better part of August. In a highly bullish case, the altcoin could break above to confront the optimistic target of $25.23. A move to the range high of $28.98 could occur in overly ambitious cases.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the Awesome Oscillator (AO) histogram bars point to rising momentum, adding credence to the upside.

SOL/USDT 1-day chart

Conversely, a rejection from the overhead pressure could see Solana price retrace, possibly dipping into the demand zone and losing the support offered by the mean threshold at $19.15 and, worse, break below the $18.41 support level, thereby invalidating the bullish outlook.  

Also Read: USDC ecosystem likely to find a boost soon, expert says, as stablecoin market cap rises $663 million