Solana Draws $2B Asset Market, Institutional Payments
SkimNews Take
The shift of institutional funds toward Solana for tokenized assets and payments suggests a broader industry move to leverage public blockchains for traditional finance, even for systems that don't require full decentralization.
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- Solana saw its real‑world asset market cap rise 43% quarter‑over‑quarter to $2.01 billion in Q1, driven by tokenized funds and new payment integrations.
- BlackRock’s tokenized money‑market fund BUIDL grew to $525.4 million on Solana, with Anchorage Digital holding roughly 81% of its supply by quarter‑end.
- Ondo Finance launched over 200 tokenized stocks and ETFs on Solana via Ondo Global Markets, and Franklin Templeton partnered to bring tokenized ETF products on‑chain.
- Citigroup completed a proof‑of‑concept for tokenized trade finance on Solana with PwC.
- Visa, along with Stripe, Worldpay, Western Union and PayPal, integrated Solana for stablecoin settlement or launched Solana‑native payment products over the past year.
- Stablecoin market on Solana ended Q1 at $14.85 billion, third among blockchains, while adjusted stablecoin transfer volume rose 13% to $246.8 billion.
- Alpenglow upgrade is expected to cut transaction finality from roughly 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds, boosting payments, tokenized finance and AI‑driven apps.
Why it matters: Institutional investors and payment processors gain cheaper, near‑instant settlement, while Solana’s on‑chain activity stays resilient despite a broader crypto slowdown; the Alpenglow upgrade’s sub‑150 ms finality could further cement its role in tokenized finance and AI‑driven apps and could attract new developers seeking high‑throughput platforms.
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