Solana To $500? Why Bulls Think AI Could Change The SOL Story

Solana’s AI narrative is gaining fresh support from crypto investors who argue that SOL may be positioned as a core financial infrastructure asset in an agent-driven economy. Parker White, COO of DeFiDevCorp, and Delphi Ventures founding partner Tom Shaughnessy both pointed to Solana’s speed, liquidity and developer ecosystem as reasons the market may be underpricing the asset.

Solana’s AI Thesis Is Heating Up

White, known on X as @TheOtherParker_, said on May 9 that he remains bullish on SOL because Solana combines “s-tier technology, user adoption, and liquidity.” He pushed back on the common argument that Ethereum’s larger DeFi liquidity and TVL base gives it an unassailable lead, arguing that the comparison looks different once traditional finance enters the market.

“Some people will counter with ‘Yes, but ETH has such a huge DeFi liquidity/TVL lead.’ Huge is relative though and compared to TradFi liquidity, all DeFi liquidity is a drop in the bucket,” White wrote. “So when TradFi capital allocators enter the space, SOL and ETH are effectively on the same, level playing field. In this environment, technology/UX plays a giant role on adoption and SOL wins hands down.”

White also argued that SOL’s relative valuation leaves room for a larger repricing if investors begin to treat Solana as a serious competitor to Ethereum. “Couple all of this with the 5x relative value differential, and it’s really hard not to be bullish,” he wrote. “If SOL just catches up to ETH, SOL is at roughly $500 without ETH even moving. Good odds of a good outcome.”

The more novel part of White’s thesis is not simply that Solana can compete with Ethereum on throughput or user experience. It is that AI could make Solana more strategically relevant, not less. In his view, many software businesses face uncertainty as AI compresses margins or disrupts established cash-flow models. Solana, by contrast, could benefit if autonomous agents require fast, low-cost and globally accessible financial rails.

“As future software cashflows continue to be repriced with increased uncertainty, investors will look to diversify, bc diversification is the best way to combat uncertainty,” White wrote. “As this diversification occurs, rationale investors will look at SOL as a financial software infrastructure play that has a ‘high degree of positive AI convexity.’”

White’s argument rests on the assumption that agentic activity will require cheap, high-frequency settlement. He described Solana as “second to none” for micropayments and said token-to-token value transfer between non-human agents “makes sense on SOL, but nowhere else.” Other networks, he argued, are either too expensive or lack the infrastructure and liquidity needed for that use case.

He also said Solana’s network effects would be strengthened rather than weakened by AI usage. “Second, the network effects and liquidity cannot be replicated by a fresh AI-built system,” White wrote. “More AI usage actually strengthens the network effects and liquidity, not weakens. This is where the positive convexity comes in.” He added that crypto networks are “global, permissionless, and composible,” making them a natural operating environment for agents that need to interact, collaborate, pay and build across borders.

Shaughnessy, writing separately on X, made a similar case. He said his SOL thesis is that it is “the best chain for AI,” citing cheap and fast infrastructure alongside what he called the strongest engineering base. He also argued that AI will make it easier to build new crypto applications, potentially accelerating sector formation through “easy capital formation,” global communities and rapid app creation.

In a follow-up post, Shaughnessy contrasted Solana with Bitcoin in the context of AI agents. “I don’t think AI and agents interplay with BTC directly since it’s not a programmable chain they can interact on,” he wrote. “I do think BTC is a massive beneficiary of AI as AGI will want to own assets humans can’t manipulate and mass money printing to deal with AGI benefits BTC.”

For Solana, Shaughnessy summarized the thesis as “legitimate AI sector ownership,” faster chain performance through Alpenglow, under-ownership after investors sold SOL for other assets, and the potential for pre-IPO stocks to trade around the clock.

At press time, SOL traded at $94.51.

SOL remains below the 20-week EMA, 1-week chart | Source: SOLUSDT on TradingView.com

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com