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The Solana Treasury Revolution Reshaping Crypto Corporate Strategy

· 38 min read
Dora Noda
Software Engineer

The September 2025 panel "The Solana Treasury Bet: From Balance Sheets to Ecosystem Flywheel" at TOKEN2049 Singapore marked a watershed moment in institutional crypto adoption. Led by industry titans from Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, Pantera Capital, Drift, and the Solana Foundation, the discussion revealed how corporations are abandoning passive Bitcoin strategies for active, yield-generating Solana treasuries that turn balance sheets into productive ecosystem participants. With $3+ billion already deployed by 19 public companies holding 15.4 million SOL (2.5% of supply), this shift creates a powerful flywheel: corporate capital purchases SOL, reducing supply while funding ecosystem growth, which attracts developers and users, generating real economic value that justifies further corporate adoption. Unlike Bitcoin's passive "digital gold" narrative, Solana's treasury thesis combines 7-8% staking yields with DeFi participation, high-performance infrastructure (65,000 TPS), and alignment with network growth—enabling companies to operate as on-chain financial institutions rather than mere holders. The panel's roster—representing firms that collectively committed over $2 billion to Solana treasuries in 2025—signaled that institutional crypto has evolved from speculation to fundamental value creation.

The landmark panel that launched a movement

The TOKEN2049 Singapore panel on October 1-2, 2025, assembled five voices who would shape the narrative around Solana's institutional moment. Jason Urban, Galaxy Digital's Global Head of Trading, articulated the regulatory catalyst: "Under the new US regulatory environment, many L1 and L2 are no longer considered securities, which opens the door for public companies to acquire cryptocurrencies in large quantities and trade them on the public market." This regulatory shift, combined with Solana's technical maturity and economic potential, created what Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz called "the season of SOL."

The panel occurred amid extraordinary market momentum. Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital had just closed Forward Industries' record-breaking $1.65 billion PIPE financing—the largest Solana-focused treasury raise in history. Forward acquired 6.82 million SOL at an average price of $232, immediately positioning itself as the world's largest public Solana treasury. Pantera Capital, through General Partner Cosmo Jiang, had simultaneously raised $500 million for Helius Medical Technologies (later rebranding to "Solana Company"), with an additional $750 million available through warrants. Combined with other treasury announcements that month, over $4 billion in capital commitments flooded into Solana within weeks.

The panel's composition reflected different facets of the Solana ecosystem. Saurabh Sharma brought Jump Crypto's engineering credibility—the firm develops Firedancer, a high-performance validator client targeting 1 million+ transactions per second. Cosmo Jiang represented Pantera's asset management sophistication, managing over $1 billion in Digital Asset Treasury exposure across 15+ investments. Akshay BD contributed the Solana Foundation's community-first philosophy, emphasizing permissionless access to "Internet Capital Markets." David Lu showcased Drift's $300+ million TVL perpetuals exchange as infrastructure enabling sophisticated treasury strategies. Jason Urban embodied institutional capital deployment expertise, having just orchestrated Galaxy's acquisition of 6.5 million SOL in five days to support the Forward deal.

Participants maintained an overwhelmingly optimistic outlook on Solana's institutional trajectory. The consensus centered on Solana's potential to generate $2 billion in annual revenue with consistent growth, making it increasingly attractive to traditional public market investors. Unlike passive Bitcoin holdings, the panel emphasized that Solana treasuries could deploy capital in "sophisticated ways within the ecosystem to create differentiated value and increase SOL per share at a faster rate than simply being a passive holder." This active management philosophy—turning corporate treasuries into on-chain hedge funds—distinguished Solana's approach from predecessors.

Why smart money chooses Solana over Bitcoin and Ethereum

The treasury bet thesis rests on Solana's fundamental advantages over alternative blockchain assets. Cosmo Jiang distilled the investment case: "Solana is just faster, cheaper, and more accessible. It maps perfectly to the same consumer demand cycle that made Amazon unbeatable." This Amazon analogy—emphasizing Jeff Bezos' "holy trinity of consumer wants" (fast, cheap, accessible)—underpins Pantera's conviction that Solana will become the premier destination for consumer applications and decentralized finance.

The yield generation differential stands as the most compelling financial argument. While Bitcoin produces zero native yield and Ethereum generates 3-4% through staking, Solana delivers 7-8% annual returns from validation rewards. For Upexi Inc., which holds 2 million SOL, this translates to $65,000 in daily staking income (approximately $23-27 million annually). These yields create recurring revenue streams that can service debt obligations without selling assets—enabling sophisticated capital structures like convertible notes and perpetual preferred stock that work poorly for non-yield-bearing Bitcoin. As Multicoin Capital's Kyle Samani noted, the convertible and perpetual preferred structure "works far better for SOL than BTC" precisely because of this cash flow generation.

Beyond staking, Solana's mature DeFi ecosystem enables treasury deployment strategies unavailable on Bitcoin. Companies can participate in lending protocols (Kamino, Drift), provide liquidity, execute basis trades, farm airdrops, and deploy liquid staking tokens as collateral while maintaining yield. DeFi Development Corp partnered with risk management firm Gauntlet to optimize strategies across these opportunities, claiming 20-40% higher yields than centralized exchanges. Forward Industries emphasized its intention to generate "differentiated on-chain return sources that go far beyond traditional staking, leveraging Solana's high-performance decentralized finance ecosystem."

The performance and cost advantages create operational benefits. Solana processes 65,000 transactions per second with sub-second finality and approximately $0.00025 fees—thousands of times cheaper than Ethereum's variable gas costs. This enables high-frequency treasury operations, on-chain equity issuance (Forward partnering with Superstate to tokenize shares), native dividend processing, and governance execution. Mike Novogratz emphasized that Solana "can process 14 billion transactions a day—that's more than equities, fixed income, commodities and foreign exchange combined. It's tailor-made for financial markets."

From a portfolio construction perspective, Solana offers asymmetric upside potential. Trading at only 5% of Bitcoin's market cap despite comparable or superior usage metrics, early institutional adopters see substantial appreciation opportunity. Pantera's analysis showed Solana generated $1.27 billion in annualized revenue while Ethereum generated $2.4 billion—yet Ethereum's market cap stood 4x larger. This valuation gap, combined with Solana's superior growth rates (83% developer growth vs. industry's -9% decline), positions SOL as an earlier-stage bet with higher potential returns.

The competitive positioning against Ethereum reveals structural advantages. Solana's monolithic architecture captures all value in the SOL token with unified user experience, while Ethereum's value fragments across Layer-2 ecosystems (Arbitrum, Optimism, Base). As Cosmo Jiang observed, Ethereum "is currently losing market share" despite talented builders, trading at a $435 billion valuation that "ranks amongst the most successful companies in the world if compared to equity." Meanwhile, Solana captured 64% of AI agent sector mindshare, 81% of DEX transactions by count, and added 7,625 new developers in 2024—the most of any blockchain, surpassing Ethereum for the first time since 2016.

The sophisticated mechanics behind corporate SOL accumulation

Treasury companies employ diverse capital-raising mechanisms tailored to market conditions and strategic objectives. Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE) transactions dominate early-stage accumulation, enabling negotiated deals with institutional buyers at fixed discounts. Forward Industries closed its $1.65 billion PIPE in approximately two weeks, demonstrating execution speed when strategic investors align. Sharps Technology similarly raised $400 million through PIPE financing backed by ParaFi, Pantera Capital, FalconX, and others, securing an additional $50 million in SOL from the Solana Foundation at a 15% discount.

At-The-Market (ATM) offerings provide ongoing flexibility for opportunistic accumulation. Forward's $4 billion ATM program filed shortly after its initial PIPE signals ambition to continue accumulating as market conditions permit. ATMs allow companies to sell shares incrementally at prevailing market prices, timing issuance to maximize proceeds and minimize dilution. This continuous capital-raising capacity proves crucial for maintaining accumulation velocity in competitive markets.

Convertible notes and perpetual preferred stock represent sophisticated financing innovations enabled by Solana's native yield. SOL Strategies secured a $500 million convertible note financing specifically for SOL purchases, described as "first-of-its-kind digital asset financing with staking yield sharing." The 7-8% staking rewards make debt servicing natural—interest payments come from yield generation rather than operational cash flow. Multicoin's Kyle Samani actively promoted perpetual preferred structures where dividends can be serviced from staking income while avoiding maturity dates that force refinancing or repayment.

Locked token purchases at discounts create immediate value accretion. Upexi acquired over 50% of its holdings as locked tokens at approximately 15% discounts, accepting multi-year vesting schedules in exchange for below-market pricing. With 19.1 million SOL (3.13% of supply) currently locked until January 2028, secondary markets emerged where companies purchase these discounted tokens from early investors seeking liquidity. This strategy delivers instant gains once tokens unlock while earning staking rewards throughout the lockup period, and reduces future supply overhang by concentrating tokens in long-term corporate hands rather than retail sellers.

Deployment strategies vary by operational sophistication and risk tolerance. Pure staking approaches appeal to companies avoiding technical complexity—Upexi stakes nearly its entire 2 million SOL position through delegation across multiple validators, earning consistent yields without operating infrastructure. This maximizes capital efficiency and minimizes operational overhead, though it forgoes additional revenue streams available to validator operators.

Validator operations unlock multiple income sources beyond basic staking. Companies running validators capture inflation rewards (earned from staking), block rewards (not available to delegators), MEV (maximum extractable value) rewards with commissions, and validator fees from third-party delegators. SOL Strategies exemplifies this model: holding only 435,000 SOL in treasury yet securing 3.75 million SOL in delegations from external stakers. With commission rates of 1-5%, these delegations generate substantial recurring revenue. The company acquired three independent validators (Laine, OrangeFin Ventures, Cogent) to accelerate this "validator-as-a-service" business model, positioning itself as a technology company first and treasury second—the "DAT++" approach.

Liquid staking tokens revolutionize capital efficiency by maintaining liquidity while earning yields. DeFi Development Corp partnered with Sanctum to launch dfdvSOL, a liquid staking token representing its staked position. Holders earn staking rewards while retaining the ability to trade, use as collateral, or deploy in DeFi protocols. This innovation enables simultaneous pursuit of multiple strategies: staking yields plus DeFi lending yields plus potential liquidation without unstaking delays. VisionSys AI announced plans to deploy $2 billion through Marinade Finance's mSOL, leveraging liquid staking for maximum flexibility.

Advanced DeFi strategies transform treasuries into active investment vehicles. Companies lend liquid staking tokens on platforms like Kamino and Drift, borrow stablecoins against collateral for further deployment, execute delta-neutral basis trades capturing funding rate arbitrage, participate in lending protocols with cross-margin capabilities, and farm airdrops through strategic protocol participation. Forward Industries explicitly emphasized generating "differentiated yields" through these sophisticated tactics, with Galaxy Asset Management providing execution and risk management expertise.

The companies betting billions on Solana's future

Forward Industries represents the apex of Solana treasury ambition. The 60-year-old medical device design company executed a complete strategic pivot, raising $1.65 billion from Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital to establish the world's largest public Solana treasury. The firm acquired 6.82 million SOL at an average price of $232 and subsequently filed a $4 billion ATM offering to continue accumulating. Kyle Samani (Multicoin co-founder) serves as Chairman, with Saurabh Sharma (Jump Crypto CIO) and Chris Ferraro (Galaxy President/CIO) as board observers, providing governance by the ecosystem's most sophisticated investors.

Forward's strategy emphasizes active on-chain participation over passive holding. The company executed its first trades using DFlow DEX aggregator for optimal on-chain execution, demonstrating commitment to utilizing Solana-native infrastructure. Partnership with Superstate to tokenize FORD shares positions the company at the intersection of traditional securities and blockchain, aligning with SEC Chair Paul Atkins' "Project Crypto" initiative for on-chain capital markets. Saurabh Sharma articulated Jump's enthusiasm: "We believe the opportunity exists to provide investors with access to differentiated on-chain return sources that go far beyond traditional staking, leveraging Solana's high-performance decentralized finance ecosystem."

DeFi Development Corp pioneered many treasury innovations as the first major public company centering entirely on Solana strategy. The real estate tech company pivoted in April 2025 under new management from former Kraken executives, raising $370 million through multiple vehicles including a $5 billion equity line of credit for future expansion. Holding 2.03 million SOL, the company achieved remarkable stock appreciation—surging 34x from $0.67 to approximately $23 in 2025, becoming one of the year's top-performing public equities.

The company's innovation portfolio demonstrates ecosystem leadership. It launched dfdvSOL as the first liquid staking token from a corporate treasury through Sanctum partnership, tokenized its equity (DFDVx trading on Solana) as the first public company with on-chain shares, acquired two validators ($500,000 cash plus $3 million stock) for infrastructure control, and initiated international expansion with DFDV UK after acquiring 45% of Cykel AI. The franchise model envisions "a globally distributed network of Solana treasury companies across multiple stock exchanges," with five additional subsidiaries under development. Performance metrics focus on SOL Per Share (SPS), targeting 1.0 by 2028 (currently 0.0618), with 9% month-over-month SOL holdings growth and 7% monthly SPS improvement demonstrating execution discipline.

Upexi Inc. exemplifies the staking maximalist approach. The D2C consumer products aggregator raised $100 million initially, followed by $200 million, plus a $500 million credit line—backed by 15 VC firms including Anagram, GSR, Delphi Digital, Maelstrom (Arthur Hayes' fund), and Morgan Creek. The company acquired 2 million+ SOL, with over 50% purchased as locked tokens at discounts. Unlike validator-focused competitors, Upexi pursues pure delegation: staking nearly its entire treasury across multiple validators to generate $65,000 daily ($23-27 million annually) without operational complexity. The 20-year asset management agreement with GSR (1.75% annual fee) provides professional oversight while avoiding internal infrastructure costs. Stock performance reflected market enthusiasm, spiking 330% following the initial announcement.

Sharps Technology secured $400 million in PIPE financing from ParaFi, Pantera Capital, FalconX, RockawayX, and Republic Digital to build what it described as the "world's largest Solana treasury." Holding 2.14 million SOL, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with Solana Foundation for $50 million in SOL at a 15% discount to the 30-day average price—demonstrating Foundation partnership benefits. Leadership includes Alice Zhang (CIO) and James Zhang (Strategic Advisor) from Jambo, bringing operational expertise to the treasury strategy.

Galaxy Digital's involvement transcends board participation through direct treasury accumulation. The firm acquired 6.5 million SOL in just five days during September 2025, moving 1.2 million SOL ($306 million) to Fireblocks custody on September 7 alone. As one of Solana's largest validators, Galaxy provides comprehensive ecosystem services: trading infrastructure, lending facilities, staking operations, and risk management. The firm's September 2025 tokenization of its own shares on Solana through Superstate partnership—becoming the first Nasdaq-listed company with blockchain-tradable equity—demonstrated operational commitment beyond passive treasury exposure.

Helius Medical Technologies (rebranding to "Solana Company") raised $500 million through PIPE with up to $1.25 billion total capacity via warrants, led by Pantera Capital and Summer Capital. Cosmo Jiang serves as Board Director, with Dan Morehead (Pantera CEO) as Strategic Advisor, positioning Pantera as asset manager executing the treasury strategy. The deliberate rebrand to "Solana Company" signals long-term ecosystem alignment, with Jiang stating: "We believe we have the right setup to be the leading, if not, at least one of the two or three, but certainly the leading, Solana DAT."

Beyond these marquee names, the ecosystem includes 19 publicly traded companies collectively holding 15.4 million SOL (2.5% of supply) valued at over $3 billion. Additional notable holders include SOL Strategies (435,064 SOL, pursuing "DAT++" validator-centric model), Classover Holdings (57,793 SOL, first Nasdaq company accepting SOL as payment), BIT Mining (44,000 SOL, rebranding to SOLAI Limited), and numerous others with positions ranging from tens of thousands to millions of SOL. With hundreds of millions in undeployed committed capital and multiple companies targeting $1 billion+ treasuries, the corporate accumulation trajectory suggests growth to 3-5% of total SOL supply within 12-24 months.

How corporate SOL holdings create unstoppable momentum

The ecosystem flywheel operates through interconnected feedback loops where each component amplifies the others. Corporate treasury adoption initiates the cycle: companies purchase millions of SOL, immediately reducing circulating supply. With 64.8% of all SOL already staked network-wide, treasury company accumulation further constrains liquid supply available for trading. This supply reduction occurs precisely as institutional capital creates sustained demand, generating upward price pressure that attracts additional treasury adopters—the first reinforcing loop.

Network effects compound through validator participation and ecosystem investment. Treasury companies operating validators secure the network (1,058 active validators across 39 countries), earn enhanced yields through block rewards and MEV, and gain governance influence over protocol upgrades. More sophisticated treasury operators deploy capital across the ecosystem: funding Solana-native projects, providing liquidity to DeFi protocols, and strategically participating in token launches. DeFi Development Corp's white-label validator partnership with BONK memecoin exemplifies this approach—earning validator commissions while supporting ecosystem projects.

Developer attraction accelerates ecosystem value creation. Solana added 7,625 new developers in 2024—more than any blockchain, overtaking Ethereum for the first time since 2016. The 83% year-over-year growth in developer activity, sustained despite broader crypto declining 9%, demonstrates genuine momentum independent of price speculation. Electric Capital's 2024 Developer Report confirmed 2,500-3,000 monthly active developers consistently building on Solana, with India emerging as the #1 source of new Solana talent (27% global share). This developer influx produces better applications, which attracts users, generating transaction volume that creates real economic value—feeding back into treasury valuations.

DeFi ecosystem growth provides concrete metrics for flywheel effectiveness. Total Value Locked surged from $4.63 billion in September 2024 to $13+ billion by September 2025—nearly tripling in twelve months to secure the #2 DeFi ecosystem ranking behind only Ethereum. Leading protocols demonstrate concentrated growth: Kamino Finance reached $2.1 billion TVL (25.3% market share, +33.9% quarter-over-quarter), Raydium hit $1.8 billion (21.1% share, +53.5% QoQ), and Jupiter achieved $1.6 billion (19.4% share). Average daily spot DEX volume exceeded $2.5 billion with H1 2025 total volume reaching $1.2 trillion, while perpetuals DEX volume averaged $879.9 million daily.

The App Revenue Capture Ratio reached 211.6% in Q2 2025—meaning for every $100 in transaction fees, applications earned $211.60 in revenue. This 67.3% increase from Q1's 126.5% ratio demonstrates sustainable business models for protocols building on Solana. Unlike networks where applications struggle to monetize activity, Solana's design enables protocol profitability that attracts continued investment and development. Chain GDP (total application revenue) reached $576.4 million in Q2 2025, down from Q1's $1 billion peak due to cooling speculation but maintaining strong fundamentals.

User growth metrics reveal network adoption trajectory. Monthly active addresses reached 127.7 million in June 2025—matching all other Layer-1 and Layer-2 blockchains combined. Daily active wallets averaged 2.2 million in Q1 2025, with 3.9 million daily fee payers demonstrating genuine economic activity beyond bot traffic. The network processed 8.9 billion transactions in Q2 2025, with August 2024 alone recording 2.9 billion transactions—equaling Ethereum's entire history through that date. Non-vote transactions (actual user activity excluding validator consensus) averaged 99.1 million daily, representing real economic usage rather than inflated metrics.

Economic productivity creates virtuous cycles through multiple revenue streams. Solana generated approximately $272.3 million in Real Economic Value (REV) during Q2 2025, comprising transaction fees, MEV rewards, and priority fees. While lower than Q1's speculation-driven peak, this sustained revenue base supports validator economics and staking yields. Staked SOL in USD terms reached $60 billion in Q2 2025 (+25.2% quarter-over-quarter), with liquid staking adoption growing 16.8% QoQ to 12.2% of staked supply. The combination of native staking yield, validator commissions, and DeFi opportunities creates total return potential of 7-8% annually before price appreciation—dramatically exceeding traditional corporate treasury instruments.

Institutional legitimacy amplifies momentum through regulatory clarity and traditional finance integration. The REX-Osprey Solana Staking ETF reached $160+ million AUM shortly after July 2025 launch, while VanEck filed for the first JitoSOL ETF (liquid staking token-backed). Nine total Solana ETF applications await SEC approval, with decisions expected October 2025 and beyond. Franklin Templeton integrated its money market fund on Solana, while BlackRock, Stripe, PayPal, HSBC, and Bank of America all initiated Solana-based projects. These traditional finance partnerships validate the network's enterprise readiness, attracting additional institutional capital and creating the legitimacy necessary for broader treasury adoption.

The flywheel's self-reinforcing nature means each component's growth accelerates others. Developer growth produces better applications, attracting users whose activity generates fees that fund validator rewards, improving staking yields that justify treasury accumulation, which provides capital for ecosystem investment that attracts more developers. Corporate holdings reduce supply while staking locks tokens for security, constraining liquidity as demand increases, driving price appreciation that increases corporate treasury valuations, enabling additional capital raises at favorable terms to purchase more SOL. Infrastructure improvements (Alpenglow reducing finality to 100-150ms, Firedancer targeting 1 million+ TPS) enhance performance, supporting more sophisticated applications that differentiate Solana from competitors, attracting institutional builders who require enterprise-grade reliability.

Quantifiable evidence demonstrates flywheel acceleration. Market capitalization grew to $82.8 billion by Q2 2025 end (+29.8% quarter-over-quarter), with SOL trading between $85-$215 throughout 2025. Solana captured 81% of all DEX transactions by count, 87% of new token launches in 2024, and 64% of AI agent sector mindshare—dominating emerging categories where builders choose infrastructure for new projects. The Nakamoto coefficient of 21 (above median versus other networks) balances decentralization with performance, while 16+ months of continuous uptime as of mid-2025 addressed historical reliability concerns that previously hindered institutional adoption.

What the industry's sharpest minds really think

Cosmo Jiang's fundamental analysis framework distinguishes Pantera's approach from speculative crypto investors. "If fundamental investing does not come to this industry, it just means that we failed," Jiang stated in December 2024. "All assets eventually follow the laws of gravity. The only thing that matters to investors at the end of the day—and this has been true for millennia—is cash flow." This conviction that crypto must justify valuations through economic productivity rather than narrative drives Pantera's treasury thesis. As a tech investor bringing ten years of traditional finance experience (Managing Director at Hitchwood Capital, Apollo Global Management, Evercore M&A), Jiang applies public equity valuation methodologies to blockchain networks.

His analysis emphasizes Solana's growth metrics over absolute scale. Comparing incremental developer adoption, transaction volume, and revenue growth reveals Solana capturing market share from established competitors. "Take a look at incremental growth and compare how much has gone to Solana versus Ethereum. The numbers are stark. None of this stuff is worth anything if no one uses it," Jiang observed. Solana's 3 million daily active addresses versus Ethereum's 454,000, revenue growth of +180% versus Ethereum's +37% in 30-day periods, and capturing 81% of DEX transaction count demonstrate actual usage rather than speculative positioning. He framed Ethereum's challenge directly: "Ethereum clearly has a lot of very talented people building on it. It has an interesting roadmap, but it's also valued for that, right? It is a very large asset. At $435 billion, that would rank it amongst one of the most successful companies in the world if it were compared to equity. And the unfortunate fact is it's currently losing market share."

The Digital Asset Treasury investment case centers on yield generation and NAV-per-share growth. "The investment case for Digital Asset Treasury companies is grounded in a simple premise: DATs can generate yield to grow net asset value per share, resulting in more underlying token ownership over time than just holding spot," Jiang explained. "Therefore, owning a DAT could offer higher return potential compared to holding tokens directly or through an ETF." This philosophy treats NAV-per-share as "the new free cash flow per share," applying fundamental equity analysis to crypto treasuries. The 51 Insights podcast titled "Inside Pantera's $500M Solana Treasury Play" detailed this approach for 35,000+ digital asset leaders, positioning treasury companies as actively managed investment vehicles rather than passive wrappers.

Jiang's design philosophy analysis provides intellectual foundation for Solana preference. Drawing parallels to Jeff Bezos' Amazon strategy—the "holy trinity of consumer wants" (fast, cheap, accessible)—he sees identical clarity in Solana's architecture. "I often think back to what Jeff Bezos described as the 'holy trinity of consumer wants', the cornerstone of Amazon's philosophy and what drove that company to great heights. I see that same clarity of vision and that same trinity in Solana, underscoring my conviction." This contrasts with Ethereum's ethos: "The driving force behind Ethereum philosophy has been maximum decentralization. I'm not a crypto native, I'm really a tech investor, so I don't believe in decentralization for the sake of decentralization. There's probably a minimum viable decentralization that's good enough." This pragmatic engineering perspective—prioritizing performance and user experience over ideological purity—aligns with Solana's monolithic architecture choices.

Saurabh Sharma brings infrastructure expertise and engineering credibility to Jump Crypto's Solana commitment. As CIO of Jump Crypto and General Partner at Jump Capital, Sharma joined Forward Industries as Board Observer following the $1.65 billion raise, signaling hands-on strategic involvement beyond passive investment. His background combines quantitative trading expertise (former Lehman Brothers quant trader), data science and product leadership (Groupon), and technical depth (MS Computer Science from Cornell, MBA from Chicago Booth). This profile matches Solana's positioning as the high-performance blockchain for sophisticated financial applications.

Jump's technical contributions provide unique differentiation among treasury investors. The firm develops Firedancer, a second high-performance validator client targeting 1 million+ transactions per second—potentially increasing Solana's capacity 15-20x. As one of the largest validators and core engineering contributors (Firedancer, DoubleZero, Shelby infrastructure projects), Jump's investment thesis incorporates intimate technical knowledge of Solana's capabilities and limitations. Sharma emphasized this advantage: "Jump Crypto has been a key engineering contributor to the Solana ecosystem through critical R&D projects like Firedancer, DoubleZero and others. We hope these efforts will be helpful to Forward Industries in achieving institutional scale and driving shareholder value."

The active treasury management philosophy distinguishes Jump's approach from passive holders. "Jump Crypto is excited to back Forward Industries as it takes a bold step forward with Solana at the center of its strategy," Sharma stated. "We believe the opportunity exists to provide investors with access to differentiated on-chain return sources that go far beyond traditional staking, leveraging Solana's high-performance decentralized finance ecosystem." This emphasis on "differentiated on-chain return sources" reflects Jump's quantitative trading DNA—seeking alpha through sophisticated strategies unavailable to passive holders. Mike Novogratz praised this expertise: "Kyle, Chris, and Saurabh are three of the most established names within the broader digital asset ecosystem. We believe that under their guidance, Forward Industries will quickly separate itself as the leading publicly-traded company within the Solana ecosystem."

Jason Urban's institutional capital markets perspective brings traditional finance legitimacy to Solana treasury strategies. As Global Head of Trading at Galaxy Digital with previous experience as Goldman Sachs VP and DRW Trading Group trader, Urban understands institutional risk management and capital deployment at scale. His options trading background (career began in Chicago options pits) informs risk-aware portfolio construction—focusing on "what's my max loss" and "what exactly could go wrong" in novel asset classes. This institutional rigor counterbalances crypto-native enthusiasm with prudent risk assessment.

Galaxy's September 2025 execution demonstrated institutional-scale operational capacity. The firm acquired 6.5 million SOL in five days, executing through major exchanges (Binance, Bybit, Coinbase) with $530-724 million in SOL purchases between September 11-12 alone. This rapid deployment into Fireblocks custody showcased infrastructure readiness for multi-billion-dollar operations. As co-lead investor in Forward's $1.65 billion PIPE, Galaxy committed $300+ million while assuming board observer role (Chris Ferraro, Galaxy President/CIO). The firm simultaneously provides treasury management, trading, staking, and risk management services to Forward—positioning Galaxy as full-service institutional partner rather than passive investor.

Mike Novogratz's public advocacy amplified Galaxy's Solana thesis through high-profile media appearances. His September 11, 2025 CNBC Squawk Box interview declaring "This is the season of SOL" articulated three supporting pillars: technological superiority (65,000 TPS with less than $0.01 fees, 400ms block times, capacity for 14 billion transactions daily), regulatory momentum (SEC Chair Paul Atkins' "Project Crypto" initiative, Nasdaq filing for tokenized securities trading, new stablecoin framework), and capital inflows (anticipated SOL ETF approvals, institutional competition creating flywheel effect). The emphasis on Solana being "tailor-made for financial markets" with transaction capacity exceeding "equities, fixed income, commodities and foreign exchange combined" positioned the network as infrastructure for tokenized global finance rather than speculative technology.

David Lu's product and experimentation philosophy reflects Solana's builder culture. As Drift co-founder, Lu emphasizes rapid iteration: "Need for rapid experimentation in Web3, especially within the DeFi space, where achieving product-market fit is a dynamic challenge." Drift's Super Stake Sol launch exemplified this approach—deployed in three weeks, achieving 100,000 SOL staked in eight hours, with 60% from new users. This "quick testing of concepts with potential to either excel or fail" methodology leverages Solana's performance advantages for product innovation cycles impossible on slower blockchains.

Drift's growth trajectory validates Solana's infrastructure thesis. From less than $1 million TVL at 2023's start to $140 million by year-end (140x growth), reaching $300+ million TVL and $50 billion+ cumulative trading volume with 200,000+ users by 2025, the platform demonstrates sustainable business model viability. Lu's vision of building "the Robinhood of crypto" and an "on-chain financial institution" requires infrastructure capable of supporting sophisticated financial products at consumer scale—precisely Solana's design goal. The protocol's cross-margin system supporting 25+ assets as collateral, unified capital efficiency, and suite of products (perpetual futures, spot trading, borrow/lend, prediction markets) provides infrastructure that treasury companies leverage for yield strategies.

Lu articulated why issuers will choose Solana for tokenization: "When we're thinking about a future where every single asset will be tokenized, we don't think that an issuer is actually going to look at Ethereum. They're probably going to look at the chain that has the highest amount of activity, the highest amount of users, and the most seamless integration." This user-centric perspective—prioritizing adoption metrics over theoretical capabilities—reflects Solana's pragmatic approach. His confidence in Solana's long-term value proposition extends to Drift's positioning: stating that if Drift underperforms against SOL, investors should consider holding SOL longer-term signals conviction in the underlying platform's fundamental value over individual applications.

Akshay BD's community-first philosophy represents Solana Foundation's distinctive approach to ecosystem development. As Advisor (formerly CMO) and founder of Superteam DAO, BD emphasizes permissionless participation and distributed leadership. His November 2024 marketing memo articulated Solana's promise: "to allow anyone with an internet connection access to capital markets." This democratization narrative positions Solana as infrastructure for global financial inclusion rather than technology serving existing institutions. The "Internet Capital Markets and F.A.T. Protocol Engineering" framework emphasizes creating "an open, permissionless ecosystem where anyone with an internet connection can engage in economic activities."

The decentralization philosophy contrasts with traditional corporate structures. "Solana doesn't have four founders. It has thousands of co-founders, and that's what makes it successful," BD stated in 2023. The "principle of abstract subtraction" means the Foundation intentionally creates vacuums for community to fill rather than centralizing control. "Should we find folks in the community and empower them to build that ecosystem... You get an abundance of leadership," he explained. Rather than hiring regional heads, the Foundation empowers local community leaders through initiatives like Superteam—inspired by Ethereum Foundation's decentralized model but optimized for Solana's performance-focused culture.

The developer onboarding philosophy emphasizes earning rather than buying crypto. Superteam's platform facilitates bounties, grants, and jobs that enable developers to "earn your first crypto, not buy it"—reducing barriers for international talent in countries with restricted access to exchanges. With 3,000+ verified users on Superteam Earn and India emerging as the #1 source of new Solana developers (27% global share), this grassroots approach creates genuine skill development and ecosystem ownership. The Building out Loud hackathon for Indian developers and numerous Hacker Houses globally demonstrate sustained community investment.

The regulatory landscape shaping corporate crypto treasuries

The September 30, 2025 IRS guidance (Notices 2025-46 and 2025-49) removed a critical barrier for corporate crypto adoption. Providing the Fair Value Item (FVI) Exclusion Option for Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT) allows companies to exclude unrealized gains and losses on crypto from CAMT calculations—removing billions in potential tax liability that would have penalized long-term holding strategies. For MicroStrategy, which holds 640,000+ BTC with $13.5 billion in unrealized gains, this interim guidance (applicable immediately for 2025 tax returns) proved transformative. The decision levels the playing field with traditional securities, where unrealized appreciation doesn't trigger minimum tax obligations.

FASB's Accounting Standards Update 2023-08, effective January 1, 2025, revolutionized crypto accounting treatment. The shift from cost-less-impairment modeling to fair value accounting eliminated the absurd situation where companies could only recognize decreases in crypto value (as impairments) but not increases until sale. Under the new standard, companies mark crypto assets to market each reporting period with changes flowing through net income. This introduces earnings volatility as prices fluctuate, but provides transparency and reflects economic reality. Balance sheet and income statement presentation requirements mandate separate disclosure of crypto assets with detailed reconciliations, cost basis methodology (FIFO, specific identification, average cost), and unit holdings.

The accounting clarity enables institutional participation previously constrained by financial reporting uncertainty. Public companies can now clearly communicate crypto strategy economics to investors, auditors can apply consistent standards, and analysts can evaluate treasury performance using familiar metrics. The interim and annual disclosure requirements (name of crypto asset, cost basis, fair value, number of units held, gain/loss reconciliations) create transparency that reduces information asymmetry and supports market efficiency. While mark-to-market accounting creates "income volatility where rising Bitcoin prices can inflate net income, while downturns cause it to plummet," this reflects actual economic exposure rather than masking reality through opaque impairment testing.

Solana faces unique regulatory challenges that distinguish its trajectory from Bitcoin and Ethereum. The SEC classified SOL as a security in June 2023 lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, grouping it with 11 other tokens deemed securities under the Howey Test. Despite removing requirements for judges to rule definitively on SOL's status in July 2025 court filing amendments, the SEC maintains its securities classification. Jake Chervinsky, Chief Legal Officer at Variant Fund, emphasized: "There is no reason to think SEC has decided SOL is a non-security." The SEC faces "a high bar" to prove securities status under Howey, but ongoing litigation creates compliance complexity for corporate treasuries.

This regulatory uncertainty delays certain institutional products. Nine Solana ETF applications (VanEck, Galaxy, Bitwise, Canary, Grayscale, others) await SEC approval, with initial deadlines in October 2025 but approvals unlikely under current classification. The SEC asked issuers to amend S-1 filings and refile by July 2025, creating drawn-out review processes. VanEck argues SOL functions as a commodity like BTC and ETH, but the SEC disagrees. Until regulatory clarity emerges—likely requiring congressional action through comprehensive digital asset legislation or definitive court rulings—spot Solana ETFs remain pending, potentially pushing approvals into 2026.

The Solana Foundation maintains its position unambiguously: "SOL is not a security. SOL is the native token to the Solana blockchain, a robust, open-source, community-based software project." The Foundation emphasizes decentralization, utility-focused design, and absence of ongoing essential efforts by a central party—factors that distinguish commodities from securities under legal precedent. However, regulatory resolution requires SEC concession, congressional legislation, or judicial determination rather than Foundation assertion.

Corporate treasuries navigate this uncertainty through qualified custody solutions, transparent disclosure of regulatory risks in SEC filings, engagement with specialized legal counsel, and conservative accounting practices that assume potential adverse determinations. BitGo and other qualified custodians provide institutional-grade infrastructure (SOC-1/SOC-2 certified) that reduces operational risk even as regulatory questions persist. Companies disclose SOL's contested securities status in 10-Q and 10-K filings alongside standard crypto risk factors: market volatility, cybersecurity threats, liquidity constraints, network stability, and concentration risk.

The broader regulatory environment trends positive despite Solana-specific uncertainty. Trump administration appointments include Paul Atkins as SEC Chair (former commissioner known for balanced crypto approach) and David Sacks as "Crypto Czar" coordinating policy. SEC's "Project Crypto" initiative aims to modernize securities regulation for digital assets, while the GENIUS Act for stablecoin legislation and comprehensive market structure bills (FIT21) signal congressional willingness to provide clarity. Jason Urban's representation on CFTC's Global Markets Advisory Committee reflects traditional finance integration with crypto policymaking.

State-level strategic reserve discussions amplify legitimacy. Trump's executive order proposal for federal Bitcoin reserve, combined with Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas considering state-level crypto reserves, normalizes corporate treasury adoption as prudent financial strategy rather than speculative risk-taking. International developments in Japan (tax advantages for crypto treasury exposure) and Middle East (UAE's Pulsar Group investing $300 million in Solmate treasury company) demonstrate global institutional acceptance.

What comes next for Solana treasuries and ecosystem growth

Corporate accumulation trajectories suggest substantial expansion from current 15.4 million SOL (2.5% of supply). DeFi Development Corp targets $1 billion in holdings, Galaxy Digital/Jump Crypto/Multicoin Capital previously reported seeking an additional $1 billion for joint treasury investments, and Accelerate Capital plans to raise $1.51 billion to acquire 7.32 million SOL in the largest private treasury initiative. Multiple companies hold multi-hundred-million-dollar undeployed capital commitments, while new entrants announce treasury plans near-daily. Analysts project corporate holdings reaching 3-5% of total SOL supply within 12-24 months—comparable to MicroStrategy's 3%+ of Bitcoin supply but achieved in compressed timeframe.

The locked token market dynamics create medium-term supply constraints. With 19.1 million SOL (3.13% of supply) locked until January 2028, early investor tokens vest on predetermined schedules. Corporate purchases of these locked tokens at 15% discounts accomplish two objectives: securing below-market prices with instant gains at unlock, and removing future sell pressure by concentrating tokens in long-term holders rather than early investors likely to distribute. As 2.1 million SOL unlock before 2025 ends, corporate buyers stand ready to absorb supply, maintaining price stability while continuing accumulation.

Infrastructure improvements provide technical catalysts for sustained growth. Alpenglow upgrade reducing finality from 12.8 seconds to 100-150 milliseconds eliminates the largest remaining performance gap versus centralized systems, enabling real-time settlement for financial applications. Firedancer's mainnet launch targeting 1 million+ transactions per second (15-20x current capacity) positions Solana for global-scale adoption. With Frankendancer (Firedancer's testnet version) already operating on 124 validators controlling 11% of stake as of July 2025, client diversity improves network resilience while demonstrating technical readiness.

ETF approval catalysts loom in near-term timeline. The REX-Osprey Solana Staking ETF reaching $160+ million AUM demonstrates institutional demand for regulated Solana exposure. Nine additional applications (VanEck JitoSOL ETF for liquid staking, Galaxy, Bitwise, Grayscale, others for spot exposure) await SEC decisions, with October 2025 initial deadlines and potential approvals throughout 2025-2026. Each approval creates dedicated investment vehicle for traditional finance portfolios, pension funds, wealth managers, and institutions restricted from direct crypto holdings. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust reached $50+ billion AUM in 11 months—the fastest-growing ETF in history—suggesting Solana ETFs could attract substantial capital once approved.

DeFi ecosystem maturation provides infrastructure for sophisticated treasury strategies. Total Value Locked reaching $13+ billion (from $4.63 billion twelve months prior) creates deep liquidity across lending, DEX, derivatives, and structured products. Kamino Finance ($2.1 billion TVL), Raydium ($1.8 billion), and Jupiter ($1.6 billion) provide institutional-grade protocols for treasury deployment. The 211.6% App Revenue Capture Ratio demonstrates protocols generate sustainable business models, encouraging continued development of sophisticated financial products. Integration with traditional finance (Franklin Templeton money market fund, Stripe payments, PayPal infrastructure) bridges crypto and mainstream finance.

Developer momentum creates compounding ecosystem value. With 7,625 new developers in 2024 (industry-leading growth) and sustained 2,500-3,000 monthly active developers, the builder pipeline ensures continuous application innovation. India's emergence as #1 source of new Solana talent (27% global share) diversifies geographic contribution beyond typical crypto centers. Electric Capital's validation of 83% year-over-year developer growth—while industry average declined 9%—confirms Solana captures disproportionate mindshare among builders choosing where to invest time and expertise.

Real-World Asset tokenization represents substantial growth vector. Solana's RWA market cap reached $390.6 million in Q2 2025 (+124.8% year-to-date), with Franklin Templeton's FOBXX fund and Ondo Finance's USDY demonstrating institutional appetite for on-chain traditional assets. Tokenized bonds, real estate, commodities, and credit instruments require blockchain infrastructure capable of handling traditional finance transaction volumes at costs that preserve economics—precisely Solana's competitive advantage. As Galaxy's tokenization of its own shares (first Nasdaq company with blockchain-tradable equity) demonstrates viability, other issuers will follow.

Consumer application adoption expands Solana's utility beyond DeFi. Solana Mobile shipped 150,000+ Seeker phones with integrated wallet and crypto-native experiences. Successful consumer applications in payments (via Solana Pay), social (various platforms), gaming, and NFTs (Magic Eden, Metaplex) demonstrate blockchain utility beyond financial speculation. As Cosmo Jiang emphasized, "none of this stuff is worth anything if no one uses it"—consumer adoption validates infrastructure investment and creates sustainable demand for network resources.

Consolidation pressures will reshape treasury company landscape. Kyle Samani indicated Forward Industries may acquire smaller DATs trading below net asset value, creating efficiency through scale and improved capital markets access. Companies lacking strategic differentiation, struggling with operational execution, or trading at persistent NAV discounts become acquisition targets for better-capitalized competitors. Market structure evolution likely produces 5-10 dominant treasury companies controlling majority of corporate holdings within 24 months, similar to MicroStrategy's dominance in Bitcoin treasuries.

International expansion diversifies geographic risk and regulatory exposure. DeFi Development Corp's franchise model pursuing DFDV UK (via Cykel AI acquisition) and five additional international subsidiaries demonstrates strategy. Solmate's $300 million UAE-backed raise positions Abu Dhabi as Middle East hub with bare metal validator infrastructure. These international entities navigate local regulations, access regional capital markets, and demonstrate Solana's global ecosystem reach beyond U.S.-centric crypto industry.

Competitive pressures intensify as other blockchains adopt treasury strategies. Avalanche Treasury Co. announced $675 million SPAC merger in October 2025, targeting $1 billion+ AVAX treasury with exclusive Avalanche Foundation relationship. Ethereum corporate holdings exceed 4 million ETH (~$18.3 billion), though focused on different use cases and treasury strategies. Solana's differentiation—superior yields, performance advantages, developer momentum—must sustain against well-funded competitors pursuing similar institutional adoption playbooks.

Risk factors temper unbridled optimism. Network stability improvements (16+ months continuous uptime) address historical concerns, but any future outage would undermine institutional confidence precisely when credibility matters most. Regulatory uncertainty specific to SOL's securities classification creates ongoing compliance complexity and delays certain institutional products. Market volatility affecting treasury valuations translates to stock price swings—DFDV's 700% volatility demonstrates extreme investor exposure. Operational challenges (validator management, DeFi strategy execution, cybersecurity) require sophisticated expertise that legacy companies pivoting to crypto strategy may lack.

The sustainability question centers on whether corporate treasuries represent structural shift or cyclical trend dependent on bull markets. Bears argue strategies require continuous capital raises at premium valuations—unsustainable during market downturns when NAV premiums compress or invert to discounts. Fair-weather treasury adoption could reverse rapidly if crypto enters extended bear market, forcing liquidations that cascade through ecosystem. Bulls counter that fundamental analysis methodology, staking yield generation, active treasury management, and ecosystem alignment create sustainable models independent of price speculation. Regulatory clarity, accounting standards, and tax relief provide institutional infrastructure supporting long-term viability regardless of short-term price volatility.

Expert consensus suggests cautious optimism with October 2025-Q1 2026 representing potential inflection point. Bernstein anticipates bull market potentially stretching into 2026 in "long and exhausting" grind versus explosive retail-driven rally. Goldman Sachs notes increased institutional exposure to crypto ETFs signals comfort with asset class. ARK Invest analysis finds corporate treasuries contribute moderately to BTC valuation in base case scenarios, with digital gold and institutional investment driving majority of value—suggesting treasury trend provides support but not primary price driver. Applied to Solana, this implies corporate accumulation creates positive baseline with upside from broader adoption, developer growth, and ecosystem expansion providing primary value drivers.

The Solana treasury movement represents more than financial engineering—it embodies strategic positioning for the blockchain economy's next phase. As traditional finance tokenizes assets, enterprises require performant infrastructure supporting global-scale transaction volumes at costs preserving economics. Solana's technical architecture (65,000 TPS, sub-second finality, fraction-of-a-cent fees), economic design (yield generation through staking), and ecosystem momentum (developer growth, DeFi TVL, consumer adoption) position it as infrastructure layer for "Internet Capital Markets." Corporate treasuries allocating billions to SOL make calculated bets that this vision materializes—and that early positioning provides asymmetric returns as the ecosystem flywheel accelerates from sustained momentum into exponential growth.

xStocks on Solana: A Developer’s Field Guide to Tokenized Equities

· 7 min read
Dora Noda
Software Engineer

xStocks are tokenized, 1:1 representations of U.S. stocks and ETFs, minted on Solana as SPL tokens. They are built to move and compose just like any other on-chain asset, collapsing the friction of traditional equity markets into a wallet primitive. For developers, this opens up a new frontier of financial applications.

Solana is the ideal platform for this innovation, primarily due to Token Extensions. These native protocol features—like metadata pointers, pausable configurations, permanent delegates, transfer hooks, and confidential balances—give issuers the compliance levers they need while keeping the tokens fully compatible with the DeFi ecosystem. This guide provides the patterns and reality checks you need to integrate xStocks into AMMs, lending protocols, structured products, and wallets, all while honoring the necessary legal and compliance constraints.


The Big Idea: Equities That Behave Like Tokens

For most of the world, owning U.S. equities involves intermediaries, restrictive market hours, and frustrating settlement lags. xStocks change that. Imagine buying a fraction of AAPLx at midnight, seeing it settle instantly in your wallet, and then using it as collateral in a DeFi protocol—all on Solana’s low-latency, low-fee network. Each xStock token tracks a real share held with a regulated custodian. Corporate actions like dividends and stock splits are handled on-chain through programmable mechanisms, not paper processes.

Solana’s contribution here is more than just cheap and fast transactions; it’s programmable compliance. The Token Extensions standard adds native features that were previously missing from traditional tokens:

  • Transfer hooks for KYC gating.
  • Confidential balances for privacy with auditability.
  • Permanent delegation for court-ordered actions.
  • Pausable configurations for emergency freezes.

These are enterprise-grade controls built directly into the token mint, not bolted on as ad-hoc application code.


How xStocks Work (And What It Means for Your App)

Issuance and Backing

The process is straightforward: an issuer acquires underlying shares of a stock (e.g., Tesla) and mints a corresponding number of tokens on Solana (1 TSLA share ↔ 1 TSLAx). Pricing and corporate action data are fed by dedicated oracles. In the current design, dividends are automatically reinvested, increasing token balances for holders.

xStocks are issued under a base prospectus regime as certificates (or trackers) and were approved in Liechtenstein by the FMA on May 8, 2025. It's crucial to understand this is not a U.S. security offering, and distribution is restricted based on jurisdiction.

What Holders Get (And Don’t)

These tokens provide holders with price exposure and seamless transferability. However, they do not confer shareholder rights, such as corporate voting, to retail buyers. When designing your app's user experience and risk disclosures, this distinction must be crystal clear.

Where They Trade

While xStocks launched with centralized partners, they quickly propagated across Solana's DeFi ecosystem, appearing in AMMs, aggregators, lending protocols, and wallets. Eligible users can self-custody their tokens and move them on-chain 24/7, while centralized venues typically offer 24/5 order book access.


Why Solana Is Unusually Practical for Tokenized Equities

Solana’s Real-World Asset (RWA) tooling, particularly Token Extensions, allows teams to combine DeFi’s composability with institutional compliance without creating isolated, walled gardens.

Token Extensions = Compliance-Aware Mints

  • Metadata Pointer: Keeps wallets and explorers synced with up-to-date issuer metadata.
  • Scaled UI Amount Config: Lets issuers execute splits or dividends via a simple multiplier that automatically updates balances displayed in user wallets.
  • Pausable Config: Provides a "kill switch" for freezing token transfers during incidents or regulatory events.
  • Permanent Delegate: Enables an authorized party to transfer or burn tokens to comply with legal orders.
  • Transfer Hook: Can be used to enforce allow/deny lists at the time of transfer, ensuring only eligible wallets can interact with the token.
  • Confidential Balances: Paves the way for privacy-preserving transactions that remain auditable.

Your integrations must read these extensions at runtime and adapt their behavior accordingly. For instance, if a token is paused, your application should halt related operations.


Patterns for Builders: Integrating xStocks the Right Way

AMMs and Aggregators

  • Respect Pause States: If a token's mint is paused, immediately halt swaps and LP operations and clearly notify users.
  • Use Oracle-Guarded Curves: Implement pricing curves guarded by robust oracles to handle volatility, especially during hours when the underlying stock exchange is closed. Manage slippage gracefully during these off-hours.
  • Expose Venue Provenance: Clearly indicate to users where liquidity is coming from, whether it's a DEX, CEX, or wallet swap.

Lending and Borrowing Protocols

  • Track Corporate Actions: Use issuer or venue NAV oracles and monitor for Scaled UI Amount updates to avoid silent collateral value drift after a stock split or dividend.
  • Define Smart Haircuts: Set appropriate collateral haircuts that account for off-hours market exposure and the varying liquidity of different stock tickers. These risk parameters are different from those for stablecoins.

Wallets and Portfolio Apps

  • Render Official Metadata: Pull and display official token information from the mint’s metadata pointer. Explicitly state "no shareholder rights" and show jurisdiction flags in the token's detail view.
  • Surface Safety Rails: Detect the token's extension set upfront and surface relevant information to the user, such as whether the token is pausable, has a permanent delegate, or uses a transfer hook.

Structured Products

  • Create Novel Instruments: Combine xStocks with derivatives like perpetuals or options to build hedged baskets or structured yield notes.
  • Be Clear in Your Docs: Ensure your documentation clearly describes the legal nature of the underlying asset (a certificate/tracker) and how corporate actions like dividends are treated.

Compliance, Risk, and Reality Checks

Jurisdiction Gating

The availability of xStocks is geo-restricted. They are not offered to U.S. persons and are unavailable in several other major jurisdictions. Your application must not direct ineligible users into flows they cannot legally complete.

Investor Understanding

European regulators have warned that some tokenized stocks can be misunderstood by investors, especially when tokens mirror a stock's price without granting actual equity rights. Your UX must be crystal clear about what the token represents.

Model Differences

Not all "tokenized stocks" are created equal. Some are derivatives, others are debt certificates backed by shares in a special purpose vehicle (SPV), and a few are moving toward legally equivalent digital shares. Design your features and disclosures to match the specific model you are integrating.


Multichain Context and Solana's Central Role

While xStocks originated on Solana, they have expanded to other chains to meet user demand. For developers, this introduces challenges around cross-chain UX and ensuring consistent compliance semantics across different token standards (like SPL vs. ERC-20). Even so, Solana’s sub-second finality and native Token Extensions keep it a premier venue for on-chain equities.


Developer Checklist

  • Token Introspection: Read the mint’s full extension set (metadata pointer, pausable, permanent delegate, etc.) and subscribe to pause events to fail safely.
  • Price and Actions: Source prices from robust oracles and watch for scaled-amount updates to correctly handle dividends and splits.
  • UX Clarity: Display eligibility requirements and rights limitations (e.g., no voting) prominently. Link to official issuer documentation within your app.
  • Risk Limits: Apply appropriate LTV haircuts, implement off-hours liquidity safeguards, and build circuit-breakers tied to the mint’s pausable state.
  • Compliance Alignment: If and when transfer hooks are enabled, ensure your protocol enforces allow/deny lists at the transfer level. Until then, gate user flows at the application layer.

Why This Matters Now

The early traction for xStocks shows genuine demand, with broad exchange listings, immediate DeFi integrations, and measurable on-chain volumes. While this is still a tiny slice of the $120 trillion global equity market, the signal for builders is clear: the primitives are here, the rails are ready, and the greenfield is wide open.

PYUSD on Solana: The Practical Integration Guide (with BlockEden.xyz RPC)

· 9 min read
Dora Noda
Software Engineer

PayPal USD (PYUSD) has landed on Solana, marking a significant milestone for digital payments. This guide provides a direct, production-minded walkthrough for engineers integrating PYUSD into wallets, dApps, and commerce platforms on Solana.

All examples use fresh, Token-2022-aware code and are designed to work seamlessly with BlockEden.xyz's low-latency Solana RPC endpoints.

TL;DR

  • What: PayPal USD (PYUSD) is now a native Token-2022 SPL token on Solana, offering fast, low-fee settlement for a globally recognized stablecoin.
  • Key Params: Mint 2b1kV6DkPAnxd5ixfnxCpjxmKwqjjaYmCZfHsFu24GXo, decimals 6, and token program Token-2022.
  • Feature Set: Leverages Solana Token Extensions (Token-2022). It has a Transfer Hook initialized but currently inactive (null program), along with confidential transfer capabilities and other extensions.
  • Cross-chain: An official LayerZero integration enables PYUSD to move between Ethereum and Solana via a secure burn-and-mint mechanism, bypassing traditional bridges.
  • Action: Use this guide as a drop-in template to add PYUSD support to your application with BlockEden.xyz's reliable Solana RPC.

Why PYUSD on Solana Matters

The combination of PayPal's brand with Solana's performance creates a powerful new rail for digital dollars.

  1. Consumer Trust Meets Crypto UX: PYUSD is issued by the regulated trust company Paxos and is deeply integrated into PayPal and Venmo. This gives users a familiar asset. They can hold a single PYUSD balance and choose to withdraw to an external wallet on either Ethereum or Solana, abstracting away chain complexity.
  2. Payments-Ready Rails: Solana’s architecture provides sub-second transaction finality and fees that are fractions of a cent. PYUSD layers a stable, recognizable unit of account on top of this efficient settlement network, making it ideal for payments, commerce, and remittances.
  3. Institution-Grade Controls: By launching as a Token-2022 token, PYUSD can utilize built-in extensions for features like confidential transfers, rich metadata, and a permanent delegate. This enables advanced compliance and functionality without requiring bespoke, difficult-to-audit smart contracts.

The Absolute Essentials (Pin These)

Before you write a single line of code, get these parameters locked in. Always verify the mint address in a trusted explorer to avoid interacting with fraudulent tokens.

  • Mint (Mainnet): 2b1kV6DkPAnxd5ixfnxCpjxmKwqjjaYmCZfHsFu24GXo
  • Decimals: 6 (meaning 1 PYUSD = 1,000,000 base units)
  • Token Program: Token-2022 (Program ID: TokenzQdBNbLqP5VEhdkAS6EPFLC1PHnBqCXEpPxuEb)
  • Token Extensions Used (at mint):
    • Metadata & Metadata Pointer
    • Permanent Delegate
    • Transfer Hook (initialized with a null program)
    • Confidential Transfer Configuration

You can verify all of this on the Solana Explorer. The explorer will clearly show the official mint address and its enabled extensions.

Set Up Your Project

Let's get our environment ready. You'll need the latest Solana web3 and SPL token libraries to ensure full Token-2022 compatibility.

1. Libraries

Install the necessary packages from npm.

npm i @solana/web3.js @solana/spl-token

2. RPC Connection

Point your application to your BlockEden.xyz Solana Mainnet RPC URL. For production, environment variables are a must.

// package.json
// npm i @solana/web3.js @solana/spl-token

import { Connection, Keypair, PublicKey } from "@solana/web3.js";
import {
TOKEN_2022_PROGRAM_ID,
getMint,
getOrCreateAssociatedTokenAccount,
getAssociatedTokenAddress,
createTransferCheckedInstruction,
} from "@solana/spl-token";

// Use your BlockEden.xyz Solana RPC URL from your dashboard
const RPC_ENDPOINT =
process.env.SOLANA_RPC_URL ??
"[https://your-blockeden-solana-mainnet-endpoint.com](https://your-blockeden-solana-mainnet-endpoint.com)";
export const connection = new Connection(RPC_ENDPOINT, "confirmed");

// PYUSD (mainnet)
export const PYUSD_MINT = new PublicKey(
"2b1kV6DkPAnxd5ixfnxCpjxmKwqjjaYmCZfHsFu24GXo",
);

Reading PYUSD Mint Data

First, let's programmatically confirm the PYUSD mint's properties. This is a crucial first step to ensure your constants are correct and to fetch details like total supply.

// Confirm PYUSD mint info via Token-2022 APIs
const mintInfo = await getMint(
connection,
PYUSD_MINT,
"confirmed",
TOKEN_2022_PROGRAM_ID, // Specify the program ID
);

console.log({
supply: mintInfo.supply.toString(),
decimals: mintInfo.decimals, // Expect 6
isInitialized: mintInfo.isInitialized,
});

Notice we explicitly pass TOKEN_2022_PROGRAM_ID. This is the most common source of errors when working with Token Extensions.

Create or Fetch Associated Token Accounts (ATAs)

Associated Token Accounts for Token-2022 tokens must be derived using the Token-2022 program ID. If you use the legacy TOKEN_PROGRAM_ID, transactions will fail with an "incorrect program id" error.

// Payer and owner of the new ATA. Replace with your wallet logic.
const owner = Keypair.generate();

// Create or fetch the owner's PYUSD ATA (Token-2022 aware)
const ownerAta = await getOrCreateAssociatedTokenAccount(
connection,
owner, // Payer for creation
PYUSD_MINT, // Mint
owner.publicKey, // Owner of the ATA
false, // allowOwnerOffCurve
"confirmed",
undefined, // options
TOKEN_2022_PROGRAM_ID, // <-- IMPORTANT: Use Token-2022 Program ID
);

console.log("Owner PYUSD ATA:", ownerAta.address.toBase58());

Checking PYUSD Balances

To check a user's PYUSD balance, query their ATA, again remembering to specify the correct program ID.

Using @solana/spl-token

import { getAccount } from "@solana/spl-token";

const accountInfo = await getAccount(
connection,
ownerAta.address,
"confirmed",
TOKEN_2022_PROGRAM_ID,
);

const balance = Number(accountInfo.amount) / 10 ** mintInfo.decimals; // decimals = 6
console.log("PYUSD balance:", balance);

Using Direct JSON-RPC (curl)

You can also check all token accounts for an owner and filter by the Token-2022 program ID.

curl -X POST "$SOLANA_RPC_URL" -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{
"jsonrpc":"2.0",
"id":1,
"method":"getTokenAccountsByOwner",
"params":[
"<OWNER_PUBLIC_KEY>",
{ "programId":"TokenzQdBNbLqP5VEhdkAS6EPFLC1PHnBqCXEpPxuEb" },
{ "encoding":"jsonParsed" }
]
}'

Transferring PYUSD (User-to-User)

The rule of thumb for transferring any Token-2022 asset is to use createTransferCheckedInstruction. This instruction includes the token's decimals, preventing potential decimal-related vulnerabilities.

Here's a complete, reusable function for transferring PYUSD.

import { Transaction } from '@solana/web3.js';

async function transferPyusd({
fromWallet, // The sender's Keypair
toPubkey, // The recipient's PublicKey
uiAmount, // The amount in PYUSD, e.g., 1.25
}: {
fromWallet: Keypair;
toPubkey: PublicKey;
uiAmount: number;
}) {
const decimals = 6; // From mintInfo.decimals
const rawAmount = BigInt(Math.round(uiAmount * (10 ** decimals)));

// Get the sender's ATA address
const fromAta = await getAssociatedTokenAddress(
PYUSD_MINT,
fromWallet.publicKey,
false,
TOKEN_2022_PROGRAM_ID
);

// Ensure the recipient's ATA exists for Token-2022
const toAta = await getOrCreateAssociatedTokenAccount(
connection,
fromWallet, // Payer
PYUSD_MINT,
toPubkey,
false,
'confirmed',
undefined,
TOKEN_2022_PROGRAM_ID
);

const transferInstruction = createTransferCheckedInstruction(
fromAta, // Source ATA
PYUSD_MINT, // Mint
toAta.address, // Destination ATA
fromWallet.publicKey, // Owner of the source ATA
rawAmount, // Amount in base units
decimals, // Decimals
[], // Multisig signers
TOKEN_2022_PROGRAM_ID // <-- IMPORTANT
);

const transaction = new Transaction().add(transferInstruction);

// Set recent blockhash and fee payer
transaction.recentBlockhash = (await connection.getLatestBlockhash()).blockhash;
transaction.feePayer = fromWallet.publicKey;

const signature = await connection.sendTransaction(transaction, [fromWallet]);
await connection.confirmTransaction(signature, 'confirmed');

console.log('Transaction successful with signature:', signature);
return signature;
}

A Note on the Transfer Hook: PYUSD's mint initializes the Transfer Hook extension but sets its program to null. This means standard transfers currently work without extra accounts or logic. If PayPal/Paxos ever activate the hook, they will update the mint to point to a new program. Your integration would then need to pass the extra accounts required by that program's interface.

Solana CLI Quick Test

For a quick manual test from your command line, you can use spl-token with the correct program ID.

# Ensure your CLI points to mainnet and your keypair is funded.
# Transfer 1.00 PYUSD to a recipient.
spl-token --program-id TokenzQdBNbLqP5VEhdkAS6EPFLC1PHnBqCXEpPxuEb \
transfer 2b1kV6DkPAnxd5ixfnxCpjxmKwqjjaYmCZfHsFu24GXo 1.00 <RECIPIENT_PUBKEY> \
--fund-recipient --allow-unfunded-recipient

Cross-Chain PYUSD (Ethereum ↔ Solana)

PayPal has implemented an official cross-chain facility using LayerZero. Instead of relying on risky third-party bridges, this is a native burn-and-mint process: PYUSD is burned on the source chain (e.g., Ethereum) and an equivalent amount is minted on the destination chain (Solana). This eliminates bridge-specific risks and slippage.

You can find the full tutorial and parameters in the official PayPal Developer documentation.

Test with Faucets

For development and testing, do not use mainnet assets. Use the official faucets:

  • Paxos PYUSD Faucet: To get testnet PYUSD tokens.
  • Solana Faucet: To get devnet/testnet SOL for transaction fees.

Common Pitfalls (And Fixes)

  1. Wrong Program ID: Problem: Transactions fail with incorrect program id for instruction. Fix: Pass TOKEN_2022_PROGRAM_ID explicitly to all spl-token helper functions (getOrCreateAssociatedTokenAccount, getAccount, createTransferCheckedInstruction, etc.).
  2. Wrong Mint or Spoofed Assets: Problem: Your application interacts with a fake PYUSD token. Fix: Hardcode and verify the official mint address: 2b1kV6DkPAnxd5ixfnxCpjxmKwqjjaYmCZfHsFu24GXo. Use an explorer that warns about non-canonical mints.
  3. Decimals Mismatch: Problem: Sending 1 PYUSD actually sends 0.000001 PYUSD. Fix: Always convert UI amounts to raw amounts by multiplying by 10^6. Fetch the mint's decimals programmatically to be safe.
  4. Hook Assumptions: Problem: You pre-build complex logic for a transfer hook that isn't active. Fix: Check the mint's extension data. As of today, PYUSD's hook is null. Build your system to adapt if the hook program is enabled in the future.

Production Checklist for PYUSD + BlockEden.xyz

When moving to production, ensure your infrastructure is robust.

  • RPC: Use a high-availability BlockEden.xyz endpoint. Use confirmed commitment for responsive UX and query with finalized for operations requiring ledger integrity.
  • Retry & Idempotency: Wrap transaction submissions with an exponential backoff retry mechanism. Store an idempotency key with each business operation to prevent duplicate transfers.
  • Observability: Log transaction signatures, slot numbers, and post-transaction balances. Use BlockEden.xyz's websocket subscriptions to get real-time settlement signals for your application's backend.
  • Compliance: Token-2022 provides primitives for compliance. If you need to implement features like the travel rule, the extension model allows you to do so cleanly, keeping your business logic separate from the token's core functionality.

Appendix A — Quick Reference

  • Mint (Mainnet): 2b1kV6DkPAnxd5ixfnxCpjxmKwqjjaYmCZfHsFu24GXo
  • Decimals: 6
  • Token Program ID: TokenzQdBNbLqP5VEhdkAS6EPFLC1PHnBqCXEpPxuEb
  • Background: PayPal announced Solana support on May 29, 2024.
  • Official Docs: Solana Token Extensions, PayPal Developer Portal

Appendix B — Direct JSON-RPC Calls (curl)

Get Mint Account Info & Confirm Owner

This call retrieves the mint account data and lets you verify its owner is the Token-2022 program.

# Replace with your BlockEden.xyz RPC URL
curl -s -X POST "$SOLANA_RPC_URL" -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{
"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"getAccountInfo",
"params":["2b1kV6DkPAnxd5ixfnxCpjxmKwqjjaYmCZfHsFu24GXo",
{"encoding":"base64","commitment":"confirmed"}]
}'

# In the JSON response, the "owner" field should equal "TokenzQdBNbLqP5VEhdkAS6EPFLC1PHnBqCXEpPxuEb".

List All PYUSD Token Accounts for a User

This is useful for wallets that need to discover all PYUSD holdings for a given user.

curl -s -X POST "$SOLANA_RPC_URL" -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{
"jsonrpc":"2.0",
"id":1,
"method":"getTokenAccountsByOwner",
"params":[
"<OWNER_PUBLIC_KEY>",
{"mint":"2b1kV6DkPAnxd5ixfnxCpjxmKwqjjaYmCZfHsFu24GXo"},
{"encoding":"jsonParsed","commitment":"confirmed"}
]
}'

Ready to build? Grab your high-performance BlockEden.xyz RPC endpoint and start integrating the future of payments today.

Solana's Vision to Revolutionize Global Securities Markets

· 36 min read
Dora Noda
Software Engineer

Solana is pursuing an ambitious strategy to capture a significant share of the $270 trillion global securities market through breakthrough technical infrastructure that enables instant settlement, sub-cent transaction costs, and 24/7 trading. Max Resnick, the Lead Economist at Anza who joined from Ethereum's ConsenSys in December 2024, has emerged as the chief architect of this vision, declaring that "trillions of dollars in securities are coming to Solana whether we like it or not." His economic frameworks—including Multiple Concurrent Leaders (MCL), the Alpenglow consensus protocol achieving 100-130 millisecond finality, and Application-Controlled Execution (ACE)—provide the theoretical foundation for what he calls a "decentralized NASDAQ" that can outcompete traditional exchanges on price quality and execution speed. Early implementations are already live: 55+ tokenized U.S. equities trade continuously on Solana through Backed Finance's xStocks platform, Franklin Templeton's $594 million money market fund operates natively on the network, and Apollo Global Management's $109.74 million credit fund demonstrates institutional confidence in the platform's compliance capabilities.

The market opportunity is substantial yet often mischaracterized. While advocates cite a $500 trillion securities market, verified data shows the global market for publicly traded equities and bonds totals approximately $270 trillion—still representing one of the largest addressable markets in financial history. McKinsey projects tokenized securities will grow from roughly $31 billion today to $2 trillion by 2030, with more aggressive estimates reaching $18-19 trillion by 2033. Solana's technical advantages position it to capture 20-40% of this emerging market through a unique combination of performance (65,000+ transactions per second), economic efficiency ($0.00025 per transaction versus $10-100+ on Ethereum), and the composability benefits of public blockchain infrastructure that private enterprise solutions cannot match.

Resnick's economic architecture for market microstructure dominance

Max Resnick joined Anza on December 9, 2024, bringing credentials from MIT (Master's in Economics) and experience as Head of Research at ConsenSys subsidiary Special Mechanisms Group. His move from Ethereum to Solana sent shockwaves through the crypto industry, with many viewing it as validation of Solana's superior technical approach. Resnick had been ranked among the top 40 most influential voices in crypto on Twitter/X, making his decision particularly notable. In announcing his transition, he stated simply: "There's just so much more possibility and potential energy in Solana."

At Solana's Accelerate conference in New York City on May 19-23, 2025, Resnick delivered a keynote presentation outlining Solana's path to becoming a decentralized NASDAQ. He emphasized that "from day one, [Solana] was designed to compete with the New York Stock Exchange, with NASDAQ, with the CME, with all these centralized venues that are getting tons and tons of volume." Resnick argued that Solana was never meant to compete with Ethereum, stating: "Solana has always had its sights much higher." He provided specific performance benchmarks to illustrate the challenge: Visa processes approximately 7,400 transactions per second, NASDAQ handles roughly 70,000 TPS, while Solana was achieving about 4,500 TPS as of May 2025 with ambitions to exceed centralized exchange capabilities.

The core of Resnick's economic analysis centers on market spread—the difference between the highest buy order and lowest sell order. In traditional and current crypto markets, this spread is determined by market makers balancing their expected revenue from trading with uninformed traders against losses from informed traders. The critical bottleneck Resnick identified is that market makers on centralized exchanges win the race to cancel stale orders only 13% of the time, and even less frequently on Solana with Jito auctions. This forces market makers to widen spreads to protect themselves from adverse selection, ultimately delivering worse prices to traders.

Resnick's solution involves implementing Multiple Concurrent Leaders, which would prevent single leader censorship and enable "cancels before takes" ordering policies. He articulated the logical chain in his co-authored blog post "The Path to Decentralized Nasdaq" published May 8, 2025: "To outcompete with Nasdaq we need to offer better prices than Nasdaq. To offer better prices than Nasdaq we need to give applications more flexibility to sequence cancellations before takes. To give applications that flexibility we need to ensure that leaders don't have the power to unilaterally censor orders. And to ensure that leaders do not have that power we need to ship multiple concurrent leaders." This framework introduces a novel fee structure where inclusion fees are paid to validators who include transactions, while ordering fees are paid to the protocol (and burned) to merge blocks from concurrent leaders.

Technical infrastructure designed for institutional-scale securities trading

Solana's architecture delivers performance metrics that fundamentally distinguish it from competitors. The network currently processes 400-1,000+ sustained user transactions per second, with peaks reaching 2,000-4,700 TPS during high demand periods. Block time runs at 400 milliseconds, enabling near-instantaneous user confirmation. The network achieved full finality in 12.8 seconds as of 2024-2025, but the Alpenglow consensus protocol—which Resnick helped develop—targets finality of 100-150 milliseconds by 2026. This represents a roughly 100-fold improvement and would make Solana 748,800 times faster than the traditional T+1 settlement standard recently adopted in U.S. securities markets.

The cost structure proves equally transformative. Base transaction fees on Solana amount to 5,000 lamports per signature, translating to approximately $0.0005 when SOL trades at $100, or $0.001 at $200. Average user transactions including priority fees cost around $0.00025. This contrasts starkly with traditional securities settlement infrastructure, where post-trade processing costs the industry an estimated $17-24 billion annually according to Broadridge, with per-transaction costs ranging from $5 to $50 depending on complexity. Solana's fee structure represents a 99.5-99.995% cost reduction compared to traditional systems, enabling previously impossible use cases like fractional share trading, micro-dividend distributions, and high-frequency portfolio rebalancing for retail investors.

Settlement speed advantages extend beyond simple transaction confirmation. Traditional securities markets operate on a T+1 (trade date plus one business day) settlement cycle in the United States, recently shortened from T+2. This creates a 24-hour counterparty risk exposure window, requires significant collateral for margin, and restricts trading to market hours approximately 6.5 hours per weekday. Solana enables T+0 or instant settlement with atomic delivery-versus-payment transactions that eliminate counterparty risk entirely. Markets can operate 24/7/365 without the artificial constraints of traditional market infrastructure, and capital efficiency improves dramatically when participants don't need to maintain two-day float periods requiring extensive collateral arrangements.

Anza, the Solana Labs spinout responsible for the Agave validator client, has been instrumental in building this technical foundation. The Agave client, written in Rust and available at github.com/anza-xyz/agave, represents the most widely deployed Solana validator implementation. Anza released Solana Web3.js 2.0 in September 2024, delivering 10x faster cryptographic operations using native Ed25519 APIs and modernized architecture for institutional-grade applications. The firm's development of Token Extensions (Token-2022 Program) provides protocol-level compliance features specifically designed for regulated securities, including transfer hooks that execute custom compliance checks, permanent delegate authority for lawful court orders and asset seizure, confidential transfers using zero-knowledge proofs, and pausable configurations for regulatory requirements or security incidents.

Network reliability has improved substantially from early challenges. Solana maintained 100% uptime for 16-18 consecutive months from February 6, 2024, through mid-2025, with the last major outage lasting 4 hours 46 minutes due to a bug in the LoadedPrograms function. This represents dramatic improvement from 2021-2022 when the network experienced multiple outages during its rapid scaling phase. The network now operates with 966 active validators, a Nakamoto Coefficient of 20 (an industry-leading decentralization metric), and approximately $96.71 billion in total stake as of 2024. Transaction success rates improved from 42% in early 2024 to 62% by the first half of 2025, with block production skip rates below 0.3% indicating near-flawless validator performance.

Alpenglow consensus and the Internet Capital Markets roadmap

Resnick played a central role in developing Alpenglow, described by The Block as "not only a new consensus protocol, but the biggest change to Solana's core protocol since, well, ever." The protocol achieves actual finality in approximately 150 milliseconds median, with some transactions finalizing as fast as 100 milliseconds—what Resnick called "an unbelievably low number for a world-wide L1 blockchain protocol." The innovation involves running consensus on many different blocks simultaneously, with the goal of producing a new block or set of blocks from multiple concurrent leaders every 20 milliseconds. This means Solana can compete with Web2 infrastructure in terms of responsiveness, making blockchain technology viable for entirely new categories of applications demanding real-time performance.

The broader strategic vision crystallized in the "Internet Capital Markets Roadmap" published July 24, 2025, which Resnick co-authored with Anatoly Yakovenko (Solana Labs), Lucas Bruder (Jito Labs), Austin Federa (DoubleZero), Chris Heaney (Drift), and Kyle Samani (Multicoin Capital). This document articulated the concept of Application-Controlled Execution (ACE), defined as "giving smart contracts millisecond-level control over their own transaction ordering." The roadmap emphasized that "Solana should host the world's most liquid markets, not the markets with the highest volume"—a subtle but important distinction focusing on price quality and execution efficiency rather than raw transaction counts.

The implementation timeline divides into short, medium, and long-term initiatives. Short-term solutions implemented within 1-3 months included Jito's Block Assembly Marketplace (BAM) launched in July 2025, transaction landing improvements, and achievement of p95 0-slot transaction latency. Medium-term solutions spanning 3-9 months involve DoubleZero, a dedicated fiber network reducing latency by up to 100 milliseconds; the Alpenglow consensus protocol achieving approximately 150ms finality; and Async Program Execution (APE), which removes execution replay from the critical path. Long-term solutions targeted for 2027 include full MCL implementation, protocol-enforced ACE, and leveraging geographic decentralization advantages.

Resnick argued that geographic decentralization provides unique informational advantages impossible in colocated systems. Traditional exchanges cluster all their servers in single locations like data centers in New Jersey for proximity to market makers. When the Japanese government announces loosening of trade restrictions on American cars, the geographic distance between Tokyo and New Jersey delays information about the market's reaction by over 100 milliseconds before reaching American validators. With geographic decentralization and multiple concurrent leaders, Resnick theorized that "information from around the world could theoretically be fed into the system during the same 20ms execution tick," enabling simultaneous incorporation of global market-moving information rather than sequential processing based on physical proximity to exchange infrastructure.

Regulatory engagement through Project Open and SEC dialogue

The Solana Policy Institute, a Washington D.C.-based non-partisan nonprofit founded in 2024 and led by CEO Miller Whitehouse-Levine, submitted a comprehensive regulatory framework to the SEC's Crypto Task Force on April 30, 2025, with follow-up letters on June 17, 2025. This "Project Open" initiative proposed an 18-month pilot program for tokenized securities trading on public blockchains, specifically featuring "Token Shares"—SEC-registered equity securities issued as digital tokens on Solana that would enable 24/7 trading with instant T+0 settlement.

Key participants in Project Open include Superstate Inc. (SEC-registered transfer agent and registered investment advisor), Orca (decentralized exchange), and Phantom (wallet provider with 15 million+ monthly active users and $25 billion in custody). The framework argues that SEC-registered transfer agents should be permitted to maintain ownership records on blockchain infrastructure, includes KYC/AML requirements at the wallet level, and contends that decentralized automated market makers should not be classified as exchanges, brokers, or dealers under existing securities laws. The core argument positions decentralized protocols as fundamentally different from traditional intermediaries: they eliminate the brokers, clearinghouses, and custodians that existing securities laws were designed to regulate, therefore requiring new regulatory classification approaches rather than forced compliance with frameworks designed for intermediated systems.

Solana has faced its own regulatory challenges. In June 2023, the SEC labeled SOL as a security in lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase. The Solana Foundation publicly disagreed with this characterization on June 10, 2023, emphasizing that SOL functions as a utility token for network validation rather than a security. The regulatory landscape shifted substantially in 2025 with more favorable approaches to crypto regulation under revised SEC leadership, though multiple Solana ETF applications remain pending with approval odds estimated at approximately 3% as of early 2025. However, the SEC raised compliance concerns over staking-based ETFs, creating ongoing uncertainty around certain product structures.

On June 17, 2025, four separate legal frameworks were submitted to the SEC as part of the Project Open coalition. The Solana Policy Institute argued that validators on the Solana network do not trigger securities registration requirements. Phantom Technologies contended that non-custodial wallet software does not require broker-dealer registration since wallets are user-controlled tools rather than intermediaries. Orca Creative maintained that AMM protocols should not be classified as exchanges, brokers, dealers, or clearing agencies because they are autonomous, non-custodial systems that are user-directed rather than intermediated. Superstate outlined a path for SEC-registered transfer agents to use blockchain for ownership records, demonstrating how existing regulatory frameworks can accommodate blockchain innovation without requiring entirely new legislation.

Miller Whitehouse-Levine characterized the initiative's significance: "Project Open has the potential to unlock transformative change for capital markets, enabling billions in traditional assets including stocks, bonds, and funds to trade 24/7 with instant settlement, dramatically lower costs, and unprecedented transparency." The coalition remains open to additional industry participants joining the pilot framework, inviting market makers, protocols, infrastructure providers, and issuers to collaborate on the regulatory framework design with ongoing SEC feedback.

Token Extensions provide native compliance infrastructure for securities

Launched in January 2024 and developed in collaboration with large financial institutions, Token Extensions (Token-2022 Program) provides protocol-level compliance features that distinguish Solana from competitors. These extensions underwent security audits by five leading firms—Halborn, Zellic, NCC, Trail of Bits, and OtterSec—ensuring institutional-grade security for regulated securities applications.

Transfer Hooks execute custom compliance checks on every transfer and can revoke non-permissible transfers in real-time. This enables automated KYC/AML verification, investor accreditation checks, geographic restrictions for Regulation S compliance, and lock-up period enforcement without requiring off-chain intervention. Permanent Delegate authority allows designated addresses to transfer or burn tokens from any account without user permission, a critical requirement for lawful court orders, regulatory asset seizure, or forced corporate action execution. Pausable Config provides emergency pause functionality for regulatory requirements or security incidents, ensuring issuers maintain control over their securities in crisis situations.

Confidential Transfers represent a particularly sophisticated feature, using zero-knowledge proofs to mask token balances and transfer amounts with ElGamal encryption while maintaining auditability for regulators and issuers. An April 2025 upgrade introduced Confidential Balances, an enhanced privacy framework with ZK-powered encrypted token standards specifically designed for institutional compliance requirements. This preserves commercial privacy—preventing competitors from analyzing trading patterns or portfolio positions—while ensuring regulatory authorities retain necessary oversight capabilities through auditor keys and designated disclosure mechanisms.

Additional extensions support securities-specific requirements: Metadata Pointer links tokens to issuer-hosted metadata for transparency; Scaled UI Amount Config handles corporate actions like stock splits and dividends programmatically; Default Account State enables efficient blocklist management through sRFC-37; and Token Metadata stores on-chain name, symbol, and issuer details. Institutional adoption has already begun, with Paxos implementing USDP stablecoin using Token Extensions, GMO Trust planning a regulated stablecoin launch, and Backed Finance leveraging the framework for xStocks implementation of 55+ tokenized U.S. equities.

The compliance architecture supports wallet-level KYC through transfer hooks that verify identity before permitting token transfers, allowlisted wallets through Default Account State extension, and private RPC endpoints for institutional privacy requirements. Some implementations like Deutsche Bank's DAMA (Digital Asset Management Access) project utilize Soulbound Tokens—non-transferable identity tokens tied to wallets that enable KYC verification without repeated personal information submission, allowing access to DeFi services with verified identity credentials. On-chain investor registries maintained by SEC-registered transfer agents create automated compliance checks on all transactions with detailed audit trails for regulatory reporting, satisfying both blockchain's transparency benefits and traditional finance's regulatory requirements.

Real-world implementations demonstrate institutional confidence

Franklin Templeton, managing $1.5-1.6 trillion in assets, added Solana support for its Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) on February 12, 2025. With a $594 million market capitalization making it the third-largest tokenized money market fund, FOBXX invests 99.5% in U.S. government securities, cash, and fully collateralized repurchase agreements, delivering an annual yield of 4.55% APY as of February 2025. The fund maintains a stable $1 share price similar to stablecoins and was the first tokenized money fund natively issued on blockchain infrastructure. Franklin Templeton had previously launched the fund on Stellar in 2021, then expanded to Ethereum, Base, Aptos, Avalanche, Arbitrum, and Polygon before adding Solana, demonstrating multi-chain strategy while Solana's inclusion validates its institutional readiness.

The firm's commitment to Solana deepened with the February 10, 2025, registration of Franklin Solana Trust in Delaware, indicating plans for a Solana ETF. Franklin Templeton had successfully launched Bitcoin ETF in January 2024 and Ethereum ETF in July 2024, establishing expertise in crypto asset management products. The company is also seeking SEC approval for a Crypto Index ETF. Senior executives publicly expressed interest in Solana ecosystem development as early as Q4 2023, making the subsequent FOBXX integration a logical progression of their blockchain strategy.

Apollo Global Management, with $730+ billion in assets under management, announced partnership with Securitize on January 30, 2025, to launch the Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund (ACRED). This tokenized feeder fund invests in the Apollo Diversified Credit Fund, implementing a multi-asset strategy across corporate direct lending, asset-backed lending, performing credit, dislocated credit, and structured credit. Available on Solana, Ethereum, Aptos, Avalanche, Polygon, and Ink (Kraken's Layer-2), the fund requires a $50,000 minimum investment limited to accredited investors, with access exclusively via Securitize Markets, an SEC-regulated broker-dealer.

ACRED represents Securitize's first integration with Solana blockchain and the first tokenized fund available for DeFi integration on the platform. Integration with Kamino Finance enables leveraged yield strategies through "looping"—borrowing against fund positions to amplify exposure and returns. The fund's market capitalization reached approximately $109.74 million as of August 2025, with daily NAV pricing and native on-chain redemptions providing liquidity mechanisms. Management fees run at 2% with 0% performance fees, competitive with traditional private credit fund structures. Christine Moy, Apollo Partner and former JPMorgan blockchain lead who pioneered Intraday Repo, stated: "This tokenization not only provides an on-chain solution for Apollo Diversified Credit Fund, but also could pave the way for broader access to private markets through next generation product innovation." Early investors including Coinbase Asset Management and Kraken demonstrated crypto-native institutional confidence in the structure.

xStocks platform enables 24/7 trading of U.S. equities

Backed Finance launched xStocks on June 30, 2025, creating the most visible implementation of Resnick's vision for tokenized equities. The platform offers over 60 U.S. stocks and ETFs on Solana, each backed 1:1 by real shares held with regulated custodians. Available to non-U.S. persons only, securities carry tickers ending in "x"—AAPLx for Apple, NVDAx for Nvidia, TSLAx for Tesla. Major stocks available include Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, Meta, Amazon, and the S&P 500 ETF (SPYx). The product launched with 55 initial offerings and has since expanded.

The compliance framework leverages Solana Token Extensions for programmable regulatory controls. Corporate actions are handled via Scaled UI Amount Config, pause and transfer controls operate through Pausable Config and Permanent Delegate, regulatory freeze-and-seize functionality provides law enforcement capabilities, blocklist management executes via Transfer Hook, Confidential Balances framework stands initialized but disabled, and on-chain metadata ensures transparency. This architecture satisfies regulatory requirements while maintaining the efficiency and composability benefits of public blockchain infrastructure.

Distribution partners on launch day demonstrated ecosystem coordination. Centralized exchanges Kraken and Bybit offered xStocks to users in 185+ countries, while DeFi protocols including Raydium (primary automated market maker), Jupiter (aggregator), and Kamino (collateral pools) provided decentralized trading and lending infrastructure. Wallets Phantom and Solflare incorporated native display support. The "xStocks Alliance" comprising Backed, Kraken, Bybit, Solana, AlchemyPay, Chainlink, Kamino, Raydium, and Jupiter coordinated the ecosystem-wide launch.

Market traction exceeded expectations. In the first six weeks, xStocks generated $2.1 billion in cumulative volume across all venues, with approximately $500 million on-chain DEX volume. By August 11, 2025, xStocks captured roughly 58% of global tokenized stock trading, with Solana holding majority market share at $46 million of the total $86 million tokenized stock market. On-chain DEX activity surpassed $110 million in the first month, demonstrating substantial organic demand for 24/7 securities trading.

Features include continuous trading versus traditional market hours, instant T+0 settlement versus T+2 in traditional markets, fractional ownership with no minimum investment requirements, self-custody in standard Solana wallets, zero management fees, and composability with DeFi protocols for collateral, lending, and automated market maker liquidity pools. Dividends automatically reinvest into token balances, streamlining corporate action handling. Chainlink provides dedicated data feeds for prices and corporate actions, ensuring accurate valuation and automated event processing. The platform demonstrates that tokenized equities can achieve meaningful adoption and liquidity when technical infrastructure, regulatory compliance, and ecosystem coordination align effectively.

Opening Bell platform targets native blockchain securities issuance

Superstate, an SEC-registered transfer agent and registered investment advisor known for USTB ($650 million tokenized Treasury fund) and USCC (crypto basis fund), launched the Opening Bell platform on May 8, 2025—the same day Resnick and Yakovenko published "The Path to Decentralized Nasdaq." The platform enables SEC-registered public equities to be issued and traded directly on blockchain infrastructure, initially on Solana with planned expansion to Ethereum.

SOL Strategies Inc. (formerly Cypherpunk Holdings), a Canadian public company trading on CSE under ticker HODL and OTCQB as CYFRF, signed a memorandum of understanding on April 25, 2025, to become the first issuer. The company focuses on Solana ecosystem infrastructure and held 267,151 SOL tokens as of March 31, 2025. SOL Strategies is exploring Nasdaq uplisting with dual-market presence and seeking to become the first public issuer via blockchain-based equity, positioning itself as a pioneer in the convergence of traditional public markets and crypto-native infrastructure.

Forward Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: FORD), the largest Solana-focused treasury company, announced partnership on September 21, 2025. Forward holds over 2 million SOL tokens valued above $400 million when SOL exceeds $200, accumulated through a $1.65 billion PIPE financing—the largest Solana treasury financing to date. Strategic backers including Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital subscribed over $350 million to the offering. Forward is taking an equity stake in Superstate, aligning incentives for joint product development and platform success. Kyle Samani, Forward Industries Chairman, stated: "This partnership reflects the continued execution of our vision to make Forward Industries an on-chain-first company, including tokenizing our equity directly on the Solana mainnet."

The platform architecture enables SEC-registered shares to trade as native blockchain tokens through direct issuance without synthetic or wrapped versions. This creates programmable securities with smart contract functionality, eliminates reliance on centralized exchanges, provides real-time settlement via blockchain infrastructure, enables continuous 24/7 trading, and ensures interoperability with DeFi protocols and crypto wallets. Superstate's registration as a digital transfer agent with the SEC in 2025 establishes the legal framework for full compliance with SEC registration and disclosure requirements while operating under existing securities laws rather than requiring new legislation. Robert Leshner, Superstate CEO and Compound Finance founder, characterized the vision: "Through Opening Bell, stock will become fully transferrable, programmable, and integrated into DeFi."

The target market includes public companies seeking crypto-native capital markets, late-stage startups wanting to tokenize equity instead of launching separate utility tokens, and institutional and retail investors preferring blockchain wallets over traditional brokerages. This addresses a fundamental inefficiency in current markets where companies must choose between traditional IPOs with extensive intermediaries or crypto token launches with unclear regulatory status. Opening Bell offers a path to SEC-compliant public securities that operate with blockchain's efficiency, programmability, and composability advantages while maintaining regulatory legitimacy and investor protections.

Competitive positioning against Ethereum and private blockchains

Solana's 65,000+ transactions per second capacity compares to Ethereum's 15-30 TPS on the base layer, even when including all 140+ Layer-2 solutions and sidechains bringing combined Ethereum ecosystem throughput to approximately 300 TPS. Transaction costs reveal even starker differences: Solana's $0.00025 average versus Ethereum's $10-100+ during congestion periods represents a 40,000-400,000x cost advantage. Finality times of 12.8 seconds currently and 100-150 milliseconds with Alpenglow contrast with Ethereum's 12+ minutes for economic finality. This performance gap matters critically for securities use cases involving frequent trading, portfolio rebalancing, dividend distributions, or high-frequency market making.

The economic implications extend beyond simple cost savings. Solana's sub-cent transaction fees enable fractional share trading (trading 0.001 shares becomes economically viable), micro-dividend distributions that automatically reinvest small amounts, high-frequency rebalancing that continuously optimizes portfolios, and retail access to institutional products without prohibitive per-transaction costs eating into returns. These capabilities simply cannot exist on higher-cost infrastructure—a $10 transaction fee makes a $5 investment nonsensical, effectively excluding retail participants from many financial products and strategies.

Ethereum maintains significant strengths including first-mover advantage in smart contracts, the most mature DeFi ecosystem with over $100 billion in total value locked, a proven security track record with the strongest decentralization metrics, widely adopted ERC token standards, and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance fostering institutional adoption. Layer-2 scaling solutions like Optimism, Arbitrum, and zkSync improve performance substantially. Ethereum currently dominates tokenized treasuries, holding essentially $5 billion of the $5+ billion tokenized treasury market as of early 2025. However, Layer-2 solutions add complexity, still face higher costs than Solana, and fragment liquidity across multiple networks.

Private blockchains including Hyperledger Fabric, Quorum, and Corda offer faster performance than public chains when using limited validator sets, provide privacy control through permissioned access, simplify regulatory compliance in closed networks, and offer institutional comfort with centralized control. However, they suffer critical weaknesses for securities markets: lack of interoperability prevents connection with the public DeFi ecosystem, limited liquidity results from isolation from broader crypto markets, centralization risk creates single points of failure, composability limitations prevent integration with stablecoins, decentralized exchanges, and lending protocols, and trust requirements force participants to rely on central authorities rather than cryptographic verification.

Franklin Templeton's public statements reveal institutional perspective shifting away from private solutions. The firm stated: "Private blockchains will fade next to fast-innovating public utility chains." Grayscale Research concluded in their tokenization analysis that "public blockchains are the more promising path for tokenization." BlackRock CEO Larry Fink projected: "Every stock, every bond will be on one general ledger," implying public infrastructure rather than fragmented private networks. The reasoning centers on network effects: every significant digital asset including Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, and NFTs exists on public chains; liquidity and network effects only become achievable on public infrastructure; true DeFi innovation proves impossible on private chains; and interoperability with the global financial ecosystem requires open standards and permissionless access.

Market size projections and adoption pathways to 2030

The global securities market comprises approximately $270-275 trillion in publicly traded equities and bonds, not the frequently cited $500 trillion figure. Specifically, global equity markets total $126.7 trillion according to SIFMA 2024 data, global bond markets reach $145.1 trillion, producing a combined $271 trillion in traditional securities. The $500 trillion figure appears to include derivatives markets, private equity and debt, and other less liquid assets, or relies on outdated projections. MSCI calculates the investable global market portfolio at $213 trillion end of 2023, with the full global market portfolio including less liquid assets reaching $271 trillion. The World Economic Forum identifies $255 trillion in marketable securities suitable for collateral, though only $28.6 trillion currently gets actively used, suggesting massive efficiency gains possible through better infrastructure.

Current tokenized securities total approximately $31 billion excluding stablecoins, with tokenized treasuries around $5 billion, total tokenized real-world assets including stablecoins reaching approximately $600 billion, and money market funds surpassing $1 billion in Q1 2024. Tokenized repos—repurchase agreements—process trillions of dollars monthly through platforms operated by Broadridge, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan, demonstrating institutional proof-of-concept at massive scale.

McKinsey's conservative projection estimates $2 trillion in tokenized securities by 2030, with a bullish scenario reaching $4 trillion, assuming approximately 75% compound annual growth rate across asset classes through the decade. BCG and 21Shares project $18-19 trillion in tokenized real-world assets by 2033. Binance Research calculates that just 1% of global equities moving on-chain would create $1.3 trillion in tokenized stocks, suggesting the potential for multi-trillion dollar markets if adoption accelerates beyond current projections.

Wave 1 assets reaching over $100 billion tokenized by 2027-2028 include cash and deposits (CBDCs, stablecoins, tokenized deposits), money market funds led by BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and WisdomTree, bonds and exchange-traded notes encompassing government and corporate issuance, and loans and securitization covering private credit, home equity lines of credit, and warehouse lending. Wave 2 assets gaining traction 2028-2030 include alternative funds (private equity, hedge funds), public equities (listed stocks on major exchanges), and real estate (tokenized properties and REITs).

Critical milestones for 2025 include Nasdaq's tokenized securities proposal under SEC review, Robinhood's tokenized stocks gaining regulatory clarity, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce (known as "Crypto Mom") actively advocating for on-chain securities, and Europe's planned move to T+1 settlement by 2027 creating competitive pressure as tokenization offers instant settlement advantages. Required signposts for acceleration include infrastructure supporting trillions in transaction volume (Solana and other platforms already capable), seamless interoperability between blockchains (in active development), widespread tokenized cash for settlement via CBDCs and stablecoins (growing rapidly with over $11.2 billion in stablecoins circulating on Solana alone), buy-side appetite for on-chain capital products (increasing institutionally), and regulatory clarity with supportive frameworks (major progress throughout 2025).

Cost comparisons reveal transformative economic advantages

Traditional securities settlement infrastructure costs the industry $17-24 billion annually in post-trade processing according to Broadridge estimates. Individual transaction costs range from $5-50 depending on institutional complexity and transaction type, with syndicated loans requiring up to three weeks for settlement due to legal complications and multiple intermediary coordination. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) processed $2.5 quadrillion in transactions during 2022, holds custody of 3.5 million securities issues valued at $87.1 trillion, and handles over 350 million transactions annually valued above $142 trillion—demonstrating the massive scale of infrastructure requiring disruption.

Academic and industry research quantifies potential savings. Securities clearing and settlement cost reductions of $11-12 billion annually appear achievable through blockchain implementation according to multiple peer-reviewed studies. The Global Financial Markets Association projects $15-20 billion in global infrastructure operational costs could be eliminated through smart contracts and automation as cited by World Economic Forum analysis. Capital efficiency improvements exceeding $100 billion become possible from enhanced collateral management, with cross-border settlement savings of $27 billion by 2030 projected by Jupiter Research.

McKinsey analysis of tokenized bond lifecycles shows 40%+ operational efficiency improvement from end-to-end digitization. Automated compliance through smart contracts eliminates manual checking and reconciliation processes that currently occupy 60-70% of asset management employees who don't generate alpha but instead handle operations. Multiple intermediaries including custodians, broker-dealers, and clearinghouses each add cost layers and complexity that blockchain's disintermediation eliminates. Markets currently close nights and weekends despite global demand for continuous trading, creating artificial constraints that blockchain's 24/7 operation removes. Cross-border transactions face complex custody chains and multiple jurisdictional requirements that unified blockchain infrastructure simplifies dramatically.

Settlement speed improvements reduce counterparty risk exposure by over 99% when moving from T+1 (24-hour settlement window) to T+0 or instant settlement. This near-elimination of settlement risk allows reduced liquidity buffers, smaller margin requirements, and more efficient capital deployment. Intraday liquidity enabled by continuous settlement supports short-term borrowing and lending that wasn't previously economically feasible. Real-time collateral mobility across jurisdictions optimizes capital usage globally rather than forcing regional silos. The 24/7 settlement capability enables continuous collateral optimization and automated yield strategies that maximize returns on every asset continuously rather than only during market hours.

Resnick's broader vision and cultural observations on development

In December 2024, shortly after joining Anza, Resnick outlined his first 100 days focus: "In my first 100 days, I plan on writing a spec for as much of the Solana protocol as I can get to, prioritizing fee markets and consensus implementations where I believe I can have the highest impact." He graded Solana's fee market as "B or B minus" as of late 2024, noting significant improvements from earlier in the year but identifying substantial room for optimization. His MEV (maximal extractable value) strategy distinguished between short-term improvements like better slippage settings and reconsidering public mempool design, versus long-term solutions involving multiple leaders creating competition that reduces sandwiching attacks. He quantified progress on sandwiching rates: "The sandwiching rate [is] way down... a 10% stake that's sandwiching is able to see only 10% of the transactions, which is what it should be," demonstrating that stake-weighted transaction visibility reduces attack profitability.

Resnick provided a striking revenue projection: achieving 1 million transactions per second could potentially generate $60 billion in annual revenue for Solana through transaction fees, illustrating the economic scalability of the model if adoption reaches Web2 scale. This projection assumes fees remain economically significant while volume scales massively—a delicate balance between network sustainability and user accessibility that proper fee market design must optimize.

His cultural observations on Solana versus Ethereum development reveal deeper philosophical differences. Resnick appreciated that "all of the discussions are happening in a place of how can we understand the way that a computer works and build a system based on that rather than building a system based on a mathematical model of a computer that is very lossy and doesn't actually represent what a computer does." This reflects Solana's engineering-first culture focused on practical performance optimization versus Ethereum's more theoretical computer science approach. He criticized Ethereum's development culture as constraining: "The ETH culture is really downstream of core development, and people who actually want to get things done are changing their personality, changing what they're suggesting in order to make sure that they preserve political capital with the core dev community."

Resnick emphasized after attending Solana Breakpoint conference: "I liked what I saw at Breakpoint. Anza developers are extremely cracked and I'm excited to get the opportunity to work with them." He characterized the philosophical difference succinctly: "There are no zealots in Solana, only pragmatic engineers who want to build a platform that can support the world's most liquid financial markets." This pragmatism over ideology distinction suggests Solana's development process prioritizes measurable performance outcomes and real-world use cases over theoretical purity or maintaining backward compatibility with legacy design decisions.

His positioning of Solana's original mission reinforces that securities markets were always the target: "Solana was originally founded to build a blockchain that is so fast and so cheap that you can put a working central limit order book on top of it." This wasn't a pivot or new strategy but rather the founding vision finally reaching maturity with the technical infrastructure, regulatory environment, and institutional adoption converging simultaneously.

Timeline for securities market disruption and key milestones

Completed developments through 2024-2025 established the foundation. Resnick joined Anza in December 2024, bringing economic expertise and strategic vision. Agave 2.3 released in April 2025 with improved TPU (Transaction Processing Unit) client enhancing transaction handling. The Alpenglow whitepaper published in May 2025 outlined the revolutionary consensus protocol, coinciding with Opening Bell's launch on May 8. Jito's Block Assembly Marketplace launched in July 2025, implementing short-term solutions from the Internet Capital Markets roadmap. DoubleZero testnet achieved operation with over 100 validators by September 2025, demonstrating dedicated fiber network reducing latency.

Near-term developments for late 2025 through early 2026 include Alpenglow activation on mainnet, bringing finality times down from 12.8 seconds to 100-150 milliseconds—a transformative improvement for high-frequency trading and real-time settlement applications. DoubleZero mainnet adoption across the validator network will reduce geographic latency penalties and improve global information incorporation. APE (Asynchronous Program Execution) implementation removes execution replay from the critical path, further reducing transaction confirmation times and improving throughput efficiency.

Medium-term developments spanning 2026-2027 focus on scaling and ecosystem maturation. Additional real-world asset issuers will deploy Securitize sTokens on Solana, expanding the variety and total value of tokenized securities available. Retail access expansion will lower minimum investment thresholds and broaden availability beyond accredited investors, democratizing access to institutional-grade products. Secondary market growth will increase liquidity on tokenized securities as more participants enter and market makers optimize strategies. Regulatory clarity should finalize post-pilot programs, with Project Open potentially establishing precedents for blockchain-based securities. Cross-chain standards will improve interoperability with Ethereum Layer-2s and other networks, reducing fragmentation.

Long-term vision for 2027 and beyond encompasses full MCL (Multiple Concurrent Leaders) implementation at the protocol level, enabling the economic models Resnick designed for optimal market microstructure. Protocol-enforced ACE (Application-Controlled Execution) at scale will give applications millisecond-level control over transaction ordering, enabling sophisticated trading strategies and execution quality improvements impossible on current infrastructure. The concept of "Internet Capital Markets" envisions fully on-chain capital markets with instant global access, where anyone with an internet connection can participate in global securities markets 24/7 without geographic or temporal restrictions.

Broader ecosystem developments include automated compliance through AI-driven KYC/AML and risk management systems that reduce friction while maintaining regulatory requirements, programmable portfolios enabling automated rebalancing and treasury management through smart contracts, fractional everything democratizing access to all asset classes regardless of unit price, and DeFi integration creating seamless interaction between tokenized securities and decentralized finance protocols for lending, derivatives, and liquidity provision.

Anthony Scaramucci of SkyBridge Capital forecast in 2025: "In 5 years, we'll be looking back and saying Solana has the largest market share of all these L1s," reflecting growing institutional conviction that Solana's technical advantages will translate to market dominance. Industry consensus suggests 10-20% of the securities market could tokenize by 2035, representing $27-54 trillion in on-chain securities if the total market grows modestly to $270-300 trillion over the next decade.

Conclusion: engineering superiority meets market opportunity

Solana's approach to disrupting securities markets distinguishes itself through fundamental engineering advantages rather than incremental improvements. The platform's ability to process 65,000 transactions per second at $0.00025 per transaction with 100-150 millisecond finality (post-Alpenglow) creates qualitative differences from competitors, not just quantitative improvements. These specifications enable entirely new categories of financial products: fractional ownership of high-value assets becomes economically viable when transaction costs don't exceed investment amounts; continuous portfolio rebalancing optimizes returns without being cost-prohibited; micro-dividend distributions can automatically reinvest small amounts efficiently; and retail investors can access institutional strategies previously limited by minimum investment thresholds and transaction cost structures.

Max Resnick's intellectual framework provides the economic theory undergirding technical implementation. His Multiple Concurrent Leaders concept addresses the fundamental problem of adverse selection in market microstructure—market makers widening spreads because they lose races to cancel stale orders. His Application-Controlled Execution vision gives smart contracts millisecond-level control over transaction ordering, enabling applications to implement optimal execution strategies. His geographic decentralization thesis argues that distributed validators can incorporate global information simultaneously rather than sequentially, providing informational advantages impossible in colocated systems. These aren't abstract academic theories but concrete technical specifications already under development, with Alpenglow representing the first major implementation of his economic frameworks.

Real-world adoption validates theoretical promise. $594 million from Franklin Templeton, $109.74 million from Apollo Global Management, and $2.1 billion in trading volume for xStocks in just six weeks demonstrate institutional and retail demand for blockchain-based securities when technical infrastructure, regulatory compliance, and user experience align properly. The fact that xStocks captured 58% of global tokenized stock trading within weeks of launch suggests winner-take-most dynamics may emerge—the platform offering the best combination of liquidity, cost, speed, and compliance tools will attract disproportionate volume through network effects.

The competitive moat deepens as adoption grows. Each new security tokenized on Solana adds liquidity and use cases, attracting more traders and market makers, which improves execution quality, which attracts more issuers in a reinforcing cycle. DeFi composability creates unique value: tokenized stocks becoming collateral in lending protocols, automated market makers providing 24/7 liquidity, derivatives markets building on tokenized underlying assets. These integrations prove impossible on private blockchains and economically impractical on high-cost public chains, giving Solana structural advantages that compound over time.

The distinction between hosting "the world's most liquid markets" versus "markets with the highest volume" reveals sophisticated strategic thinking. Liquidity quality—measured by tight bid-ask spreads, minimal price impact, and reliable execution—matters more than transaction count. A market can process billions of transactions but still deliver poor execution if spreads are wide and slippage high. Resnick's frameworks prioritize price quality and execution efficiency, targeting the metric that actually determines whether institutional traders choose a venue. This focus on market quality over vanity metrics like transaction count demonstrates the economic sophistication behind Solana's securities strategy.

Regulatory engagement through Project Open represents pragmatic navigation of compliance requirements rather than revolutionary dismissal of existing frameworks. The coalition's argument that decentralized protocols eliminate intermediaries therefore requiring new classification approaches—rather than forcing outdated intermediary regulations onto non-intermediated systems—reflects sophisticated legal reasoning that may prove more persuasive to regulators than confrontational approaches. The 18-month pilot structure with real-time monitoring provides regulators low-risk opportunity to evaluate blockchain securities in controlled conditions, potentially establishing precedents for permanent frameworks.

The $270 trillion securities market represents one of the largest addressable opportunities in financial history, even excluding the inflated $500 trillion figures sometimes cited. Capturing just 20-40% of a $27-54 trillion tokenized securities market by 2035 would establish Solana as critical infrastructure for global capital markets. The combination of superior technical performance, thoughtful economic design, growing institutional adoption, sophisticated regulatory engagement, and composability advantages from public blockchain infrastructure positions Solana uniquely to achieve this outcome. Resnick's vision of Solana becoming the operating system for Internet Capital Markets—enabling anyone with an internet connection to participate in global securities markets 24/7 with instant settlement and minimal costs—transforms from aspirational rhetoric to engineering roadmap when examined through the lens of implemented technical specifications, live institutional deployments, and concrete regulatory frameworks already under SEC consideration.

What Are Memecoins? A Crisp, Builder-Friendly Primer (2025)

· 10 min read
Dora Noda
Software Engineer

TL;DR

Memecoins are crypto tokens born from internet culture, jokes, and viral moments. Their value is driven by attention, community coordination, and speed, not fundamentals. The category began with Dogecoin in 2013 and has since exploded with tokens like SHIB, PEPE, and a massive wave of assets on Solana and Base. This sector now represents tens of billions in market value and can significantly impact network fees and on-chain volumes. However, most memecoins lack intrinsic utility; they are extremely volatile, high-turnover assets. The risks of "rug pulls" and flawed presales are exceptionally high. If you engage, use a strict checklist to evaluate liquidity, supply, ownership controls, distribution, and contract security.

The 10-Second Definition

A memecoin is a cryptocurrency inspired by an internet meme, a cultural inside joke, or a viral social event. Unlike traditional crypto projects, it is typically community-driven and thrives on social media momentum rather than underlying cash flows or protocol utility. The concept began with Dogecoin, which was launched in 2013 as a lighthearted parody of Bitcoin. Since then, waves of similar tokens have emerged, riding new trends and narratives across different blockchains.

How Big Is This, Really?

Don't let the humorous origins fool you—the memecoin sector is a significant force in the crypto market. On any given day, the aggregate market capitalization of memecoins can reach tens of billions of dollars. During peak bull cycles, this category has accounted for a material share of the entire non-BTC/ETH crypto economy. This scale is easily visible on data aggregators like CoinGecko and in the dedicated "meme" categories featured on major crypto exchanges.

Where Do Memecoins Live?

While memecoins can exist on any smart contract platform, a few ecosystems have become dominant hubs.

  • Ethereum: As the original smart contract chain, Ethereum hosts many iconic memecoins, from $DOGE-adjacent ERC-20s to tokens like $PEPE. During periods of intense speculative frenzy, the trading activity from these tokens has been known to cause significant spikes in network gas fees, even boosting validator revenue.
  • Solana: In 2024 and 2025, Solana became the ground zero for memecoin creation and trading. A Cambrian explosion of new tokens pushed the network to record-breaking fee generation and on-chain volume, birthing viral hits like $BONK and $WIF.
  • Base: Coinbase's Layer 2 network has cultivated its own vibrant meme sub-culture, with a growing list of tokens and dedicated community tracking on platforms like CoinGecko.

How a Memecoin Is Born (2025 Edition)

The technical barrier to launching a memecoin has dropped to near zero. Today, two paths are most common:

1. Classic DEX Launch (EVM or Solana)

In this model, a creator mints a supply of tokens, creates a liquidity pool (LP) on a decentralized exchange (like Uniswap or Raydium) by pairing the tokens with a base asset (like $ETH, $SOL, or $USDC), and then markets the token with a story or meme. The primary risks here hinge on who controls the token contract (e.g., can they mint more?) and the LP tokens (e.g., can they pull the liquidity?).

2. Bonding-Curve “Factory” (e.g., pump.fun on Solana)

This model, which surged in popularity on Solana, standardizes and automates the launch process. Anyone can instantly launch a token with a fixed supply (often one billion) onto a linear bonding curve. The price is automatically quoted based on how much has been bought. Once the token reaches a certain market cap threshold, it "graduates" to a major DEX like Raydium, where the liquidity is automatically created and locked. This innovation dramatically lowered the technical barrier, shaping the culture and accelerating the pace of launches.

Why builders care: These new launchpads compress what used to be days of work into minutes. The result is massive, unpredictable traffic spikes that hammer RPC nodes, clog mempools, and challenge indexers. At their peak, these memecoin launches on Solana generated transaction volumes that matched or exceeded all previous network records.

Where "Value" Comes From

Memecoin value is a function of social dynamics, not financial modeling. It typically derives from three sources:

  • Attention Gravity: Memes, celebrity endorsements, or viral news stories act as powerful magnets for attention and, therefore, liquidity. In 2024–2025, tokens themed around celebrities and political figures saw massive, albeit often short-lived, trading flows, particularly on Solana DEXs.
  • Coordination Games: A strong community can rally around a narrative, a piece of art, or a collective stunt. This shared belief can create powerful reflexive price movements, where buying begets more attention, which begets more buying.
  • Occasional Utility Add-Ons: Some successful memecoin projects attempt to "bolt on" utility after gaining traction, introducing swaps, Layer 2 chains, NFT collections, or games. However, the vast majority remain purely speculative, trade-only assets.

The Risks You Can’t Ignore

The memecoin space is rife with dangers. Understanding them is non-negotiable.

Contract and Control Risk

  • Mint/Freeze Authority: Can the original creator mint an infinite supply of new tokens, diluting holders to zero? Can they freeze transfers, trapping your funds?
  • Ownership/Upgrade Rights: A contract with "renounced" ownership, where the admin keys are burned, reduces this risk but doesn't eliminate it entirely. Proxies or other hidden functions can still pose a threat.

Liquidity Risk

  • Locked Liquidity: Is the initial liquidity pool locked in a smart contract for a period of time? If not, the creator can perform a "rug pull" by removing all the valuable assets from the pool, leaving the token worthless. Thin liquidity also means high slippage on trades.

Presales and Soft Rugs

  • Even without a malicious contract, many projects fail. Teams can abandon a project after raising funds in a presale, or insiders can slowly dump their large allocations on the market. The infamous $SLERF launch on Solana showed how even an accidental mistake (like burning the LP tokens) can vaporize millions while paradoxically creating a volatile trading environment.

Market and Operational Risk

  • Extreme Volatility: Prices can swing 90%+ in either direction within minutes. Furthermore, the network effects of a frenzy can be costly. During $PEPE's initial surge, Ethereum gas fees skyrocketed, making transactions prohibitively expensive for late buyers.
  • Rug pulls, pump-and-dumps, phishing links disguised as airdrops, and fake celebrity endorsements are everywhere. Study how common scams work to protect yourself. This content does not constitute legal or investment advice.

A 5-Minute Memecoin Checklist (DYOR in Practice)

Before interacting with any memecoin, run through this basic due diligence checklist:

  1. Supply Math: What is the total supply vs. the circulating supply? How much is allocated to the LP, the team, or a treasury? Are there any vesting schedules?
  2. LP Health: Is the liquidity pool locked? For how long? What percentage of the total supply is in the LP? Use a blockchain explorer to verify these details on-chain.
  3. Admin Powers: Can the contract owner mint new tokens, pause trading, blacklist wallets, or change transaction taxes? Has ownership been renounced?
  4. Distribution: Check the holder distribution. Is the supply concentrated in a few wallets? Look for signs of bot clusters or insider wallets that received large, early allocations.
  5. Contract Provenance: Is the source code verified on-chain? Does it use a standard, well-understood template, or is it full of custom, unaudited code? Beware of honeypot patterns designed to trap funds.
  6. Liquidity Venues: Where does it trade? Is it still on a bonding curve, or has it graduated to a major DEX or CEX? Check the slippage for the trade size you are considering.
  7. Narrative Durability: Does the meme have genuine cultural resonance, or is it a fleeting joke destined to be forgotten by next week?

What Memecoins Do to Blockchains (and Infra)

Memecoin frenzies are a powerful stress test for blockchain infrastructure.

  • Fee and Throughput Spikes: Sudden, intense demand for blockspace stresses RPC gateways, indexers, and validator nodes. In March 2024, Solana recorded its highest-ever daily fees and billions in on-chain volume, driven almost entirely by a memecoin surge. Infrastructure teams must plan capacity for these events.
  • Liquidity Migration: Capital rapidly concentrates around a few hot DEXs and launchpads, reshaping Miner Extractable Value (MEV) and order-flow patterns on the network.
  • User Onboarding: For better or worse, memecoin waves often serve as the first point of contact for new crypto users, who may later explore other dApps in the ecosystem.

Canonical Examples (For Context, Not Endorsement)

  • $DOGE: The original (2013). A proof-of-work currency that still trades primarily on its brand recognition and cultural significance.
  • $SHIB: An Ethereum ERC-20 token that evolved from a simple meme into a large, community-driven ecosystem with its own swap and L2.
  • $PEPE: A 2023 phenomenon on Ethereum whose explosive popularity significantly impacted on-chain economics for validators and users.
  • BONK & WIF (Solana): Emblematic of the 2024-2025 Solana wave. Their rapid rise and subsequent listings on major exchanges catalyzed massive activity on the network.

For Builders and Teams

If you must launch, default to fairness and safety:

  • Provide clear and honest disclosures. No hidden mints or team allocations.
  • Lock a meaningful portion of the liquidity pool and publish proof of the lock.
  • Avoid presales unless you have the operational security to administer them safely.
  • Plan your infrastructure. Prepare for bot activity, rate-limit abuse, and have a clear communication plan for volatile periods.

If you integrate memecoins into your dApp, sandbox flows and protect users:

  • Display prominent warnings about contract risks and thin liquidity.
  • Clearly show slippage and price impact estimates before a user confirms a trade.
  • Expose key metadata—like supply figures and admin rights—directly in your UI.

For Traders

  • Treat position sizing like leverage: use only a small amount of capital you are fully prepared to lose.
  • Plan your entry and exit points before you trade. Do not let emotion drive your decisions.
  • Automate your security hygiene. Use hardware wallets, regularly review token approvals, use allow-listed RPCs, and practice identifying phishing attempts.
  • Be extremely cautious of spikes caused by celebrity or political news. These are often highly volatile and revert quickly.

Quick Glossary

  • Bonding Curve: An automated mathematical formula that sets a token's price as a function of its purchased supply. Common in pump.fun launches.
  • LP Lock: A smart contract that time-locks liquidity pool tokens, preventing the project creator from removing liquidity and "rugging" the project.
  • Renounced Ownership: The act of surrendering the admin keys to a smart contract, which reduces (but doesn't entirely eliminate) the risk of malicious changes.
  • Graduation: The process of a token moving from an initial bonding curve launchpad to a public DEX with a permanent, locked liquidity pool.

Sources & Further Reading

  • Binance Academy: "What Are Meme Coins?" and "Rug pull" definitions.
  • Wikipedia & Binance Academy: DOGE and SHIB origins.
  • CoinGecko: Live memecoin market statistics by sector.
  • CoinDesk: Reporting on Solana fee spikes, PEPE’s impact on Ethereum, and the SLERF case study.
  • Decrypt & Wikipedia: Explanations of pump.fun mechanics and its cultural impact.
  • Investopedia: Overview of common crypto scams and defenses.

Disclosure: This post is for educational purposes and is not investment advice. Crypto assets are extremely volatile. Always verify data on-chain and from multiple sources before making any decisions.

BlockEden.xyz Adds Solana to Our API Suite – Expanding Blockchain Opportunities for Developers

· 4 min read
Dora Noda
Software Engineer

We are glad to announce that BlockEden.xyz, a leading provider of Blockchain API solutions, is expanding its offerings by adding Solana to our API suite. This move aims to provide our customers with a broader range of options to build and deploy innovative decentralized applications (dApps) on the Solana network.

In this blog post, we will discuss the reasons why Solana matters, and how integrating its APIs into our suite can benefit developers and businesses alike.

BlockEden.xyz Adds Solana to Our API Suite – Expanding Blockchain Opportunities for Developers

Why Solana Matters

Solana is an open-source, high-performance blockchain network designed to support a wide variety of applications, from decentralized finance (DeFi) and gaming to supply chain management and beyond. Some of the key features that make Solana stand out among other blockchain platforms include:

  1. High Performance: Solana is built to scale and can process up to 65,000 transactions per second (TPS) at sub-second confirmation times, which is significantly higher than many other blockchain platforms. This scalability allows developers to create and deploy dApps with minimal latency, ensuring a smooth user experience.
  2. Low Transaction Fees: Solana's innovative architecture allows for low transaction fees, which makes it cost-effective for developers and users alike. This feature not only helps lower the barriers to entry for new dApps but also enables existing applications to operate more efficiently.
  3. Proof of History (PoH): Solana's unique consensus algorithm, Proof of History, provides an energy-efficient and secure way to validate transactions on the network. By using verifiable delay functions (VDFs) to create a historical record of events, PoH eliminates the need for high-energy-consuming consensus mechanisms like Proof of Work.
  4. Developer-friendly: Solana offers a wide range of developer resources, including comprehensive documentation, a robust SDK, and easy-to-use APIs. This makes it easier for developers to build and deploy dApps on the Solana network, regardless of their prior experience with blockchain technology.

Integrating Solana APIs into BlockEden.xyz's API Suite

By adding Solana to our API suite, we aim to provide developers with a comprehensive set of tools to build and deploy dApps on the Solana network. Our Solana API offerings will include:

  1. Transaction and Account Management: Easily create, sign, and submit transactions, as well as manage accounts on the Solana network.
  2. Smart Contract Deployment: Seamlessly deploy and interact with smart contracts on the Solana blockchain, simplifying the development process.
  3. Data and Analytics: Access real-time and historical data from the Solana blockchain, including transaction details, token balances, and more, for insightful analytics and reporting.
  4. Integration and Interoperability: Connect your dApps with other blockchain networks and applications using our robust set of APIs and SDKs, ensuring seamless integration and interoperability.

Conclusion

The addition of Solana to BlockEden.xyz's API suite demonstrates our commitment to providing our customers with cutting-edge blockchain technology solutions. We believe that Solana's high-performance, low-cost, and developer-friendly features make it an ideal platform for building and deploying dApps across various industries. We look forward to helping developers leverage the power of Solana through our comprehensive API offerings.

If you have any questions about our Solana APIs or need assistance in getting started, please feel free to reach out to our support team. We're always here to help you harness the potential of blockchain technology for your projects.