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Solana now beats Ethereum on trading volume, active users, and fee revenue. Ethereum still holds the money. Halfway through 2026, the question is no longer who is faster. It is whether the two chains are even running the same race.

Summary

Solana has overtaken Ethereum in Layer 1 activity with higher transaction volume, more active users, stronger DEX trading, and greater fee revenue. Ethereum continues to dominate in total value locked, stablecoin liquidity, institutional adoption, and developer activity despite losing ground in onchain usage. The rivalry has shifted from a direct competition into two distinct models, with Ethereum focused on settlement and custody while Solana leads in trading and execution. There was a time when the Ethereum versus Solana debate could be settled with a smirk and an outage screenshot. Solana was the chain that went down. Ethereum was the chain that mattered. Then Solana stopped going down, its trading volume flipped Ethereum’s, its ETF launched to institutional inflows while Ethereum funds bled for seventeen straight days, and the smirk changed sides.

Halfway through 2026, both tokens are deep in a bear market. ETH trades near $1,714 after a brutal second quarter that included a 29.5% thirty-day drawdown at the June lows, its worst quarterly stretch in years. SOL trades near $81, down roughly 78% from its cycle high, hit even harder in raw percentage terms. Price settles nothing here. The interesting story is underneath, in the on-chain data, where the two networks have diverged so completely that comparing them now requires deciding which metrics count.

So: is Ethereum losing the L1 race to Solana? The honest answer is that Solana has already won several of the events, Ethereum still owns the ones with the most prize money, and the race itself has split into two different sports.

How we got here: a short history of a long feud The rivalry has run through three distinct acts, and the current one makes no sense without the first two.

Act one, 2021 through 2022, was Solana as the venture-backed challenger: a chain built for speed, championed by Sam Bankman-Fried, and dismissed by Ethereum partisans as a centralized science project. The dismissal briefly looked like prophecy. Solana suffered repeated full-network outages, including the infamous February 2024 halt that lasted nearly five hours after a legacy loader bug forced a coordinated validator restart, and when FTX collapsed in November 2022, SOL crashed toward single digits as the market priced in guilt by association. Obituaries were published. Several were smug.

Act two, 2023 through 2024, was the resurrection nobody ordered. Solana’s developer community kept shipping through the winter, the Jupiter and Jito ecosystems matured, memecoin mania found its natural home on the only chain where a thousand trades cost less than a sandwich, and DEX volume began the climb that ended with the flip of Ethereum in late 2024. Ethereum spent the same period executing its own plan flawlessly and discovering the plan had a hole in it: the Dencun upgrade in March 2024 introduced blob space and cut L2 costs by an order of magnitude, which supercharged rollup adoption while gutting the fee burn that had underwritten the ultrasound money narrative. Activity exploded across the Ethereum stack, and ETH the asset captured almost none of it.

Act three is now: both chains institutionally legitimate, both tokens deep underwater, and the argument relocated from architecture threads to fund flow tables. Uniswap founder Hayden Adams warned back in 2025 that Ethereum’s confused scaling identity could hand DeFi leadership to Solana; in 2026 that warning reads less like a hot take and more like a memo the market already acted on.

The scoreboard, metric by metric Start with what Solana has flatly won: activity.

On a representative day in late June, Solana processed 127 million transactions from more than 2 million active addresses. Ethereum mainnet processed 2.8 million transactions from roughly 512,000 active addresses. That is not a gap. That is a different order of magnitude. Solana sustains 600 to 700 real transactions per second on average against Ethereum L1’s 15 to 20, at a cost of roughly $0.00025 per transaction against Ethereum’s dollars-per-swap mainnet pricing.

Trading volume tells the same story. Solana’s weekly DEX volume hit $11.49 billion in April against Ethereum’s $7.62 billion, a 51% lead. In February the monthly gap was wider still: $117 billion on Solana against $52 billion on Ethereum, more than double. Jupiter, the aggregator that routes the overwhelming majority of Solana order flow across Raydium, Orca, Phoenix, and Meteora, alone processes $2 billion to $4 billion in daily volume. Solana flipped Ethereum on DEX volume in late 2024 and has held the lead through every market condition since.

Then comes the metric that should worry Ethereum researchers most: revenue.

Solana generates over $1 million in chain fees per day. The major Ethereum L2s, where most Ethereum user activity now lives, generate under $200,000 combined, because blob-based data posting after the Dencun upgrade pushed L2 costs, and therefore L2 fee revenue, toward zero. Ethereum deliberately commoditized its own execution layer to win the rollup war. The result is a settlement layer with shrinking direct income and a rival that monetizes every swap on a single unified ledger.

Now flip the card, because Ethereum’s wins are just as lopsided.

Total value locked Ethereum L1 holds roughly $55.6 billion in DeFi deposits, around 68% of the entire global DeFi market, and the combined L1 plus L2 figure exceeds $80 billion. Solana holds between $8 billion and $12 billion depending on the week and the methodology, a figure that took a $270 million hit in April when the Drift Protocol exploit tore through its perps ecosystem. The deepest protocols in the industry, Lido at $27.5 billion, Aave at $27 billion, EigenLayer at $13 billion, all live on Ethereum, and Aave V4 launched on Ethereum mainnet in April to reinforce the point.

Stablecoins Ethereum hosts roughly 70% of all on-chain stablecoin supply, around $32 billion in USDC and $60 billion in USDT, and remains the venue where BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and JPMorgan build tokenized products first. Solana carries about $14 billion in stablecoins, though each of those dollars turns over roughly six times faster than its Ethereum counterpart.

Developers Ethereum counted 31,869 active developers against Solana’s 17,708 at the latest Electric Capital reading, and added more new developers over the trailing year than any other ecosystem. Solana ranked second.

One chain has the users, the volume, and the revenue. The other has the money, the institutions, and the builders. Losing, it turns out, depends entirely on where you point the camera.

How the race split in two The reason the comparison keeps producing contradictory answers is that the two chains stopped competing on the same terms years ago, a divergence we chronicled when the ecosystems first collided in early 2025.

Ethereum abandoned the monolithic race on purpose. Its roadmap treats the base layer as settlement infrastructure while execution migrates to rollups: Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and a long tail of zk systems that post proofs and data back to mainnet. Base alone captures nearly half of all L2 DeFi value, Arbitrum another 31%, and the top three rollups process close to 90% of all L2 transactions. Measured as a stack, the Ethereum ecosystem still dwarfs Solana on almost every capital metric. Measured as an L1, Ethereum mainnet is a slow, expensive chain that its own designers no longer intend retail users to touch.

Solana made the opposite bet: one ledger, one global state, sub-second finality at 400 milliseconds, and a relentless engineering campaign to make the single chain fast enough that nothing else is needed. The Firedancer validator client built by Jump Crypto, rolling toward full deployment late this year, is the endgame of that bet, with a theoretical ceiling measured in the hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. The network reliability problem that defined Solana’s reputation in 2022 and 2023 has largely disappeared; outages went from routine to rare, and the chain has traded its crash-prone image for something closer to an execution monopoly on retail flow.

The philosophical split produces the statistical one. Capital sits and compounds on Ethereum because that is what the architecture rewards: deep pools, long-duration lending, staking layered on restaking. Capital churns on Solana because sub-cent fees make churning free: high-frequency trading, memecoin rotation, dollar-cost-average bots, payments. Ethereum became the deposit ledger. Solana became the trading floor.

Follow the fees: two broken business models, one working one The revenue gap deserves its own examination, because it is the metric where architecture decisions turn into economics, and where both chains have problems they rarely advertise.

Ethereum’s fee engine used to be the envy of the industry. EIP-1559 burned base fees, high demand made ETH deflationary, and the ultrasound money framing wrote itself. The rollup migration dismantled the machine step by step. Execution moved to L2s, whose sequencers keep the margin between what users pay and what blob posting costs, and Dencun made blob posting cost next to nothing. The result in 2026: mainnet burns a fraction of its former fee load, L2s pay Ethereum pennies for security worth billions, and the value accrual question, what does ETH earn when Base wins, has replaced scaling as the ecosystem’s defining unsolved problem. Ethereum built a settlement business and priced its product like a public good.

Solana’s engine is simpler and currently stronger: one chain captures every fee at every layer. The base fee is fixed at 5,000 lamports per signature, roughly a hundredth of a cent, while priority fees let users bid during congestion, and stake-weighted quality of service plus local fee markets keep hot accounts from clogging the scheduler. On top of the protocol fees sits the Jito MEV economy, where searcher tips flow to validators and stakers, turning order-flow chaos into staking yield. Over $1 million in daily chain revenue against sub-$200,000 for the entire major L2 basket is the visible output.

The caveat is concentration of source. A large share of Solana’s fee revenue traces to speculative trading, memecoins above all, which makes the revenue line high-beta to the exact market segment least likely to survive a deep winter. Ethereum’s fee problem is structural but its demand is diversified; Solana’s fee machine works beautifully and runs on the most flammable fuel in crypto. Neither model is finished.

Fusaka and the second-half Ethereum upgrade path aim at scaling data further without answering value capture, while Solana’s validator economics, where thin margins already pushed the validator count down 68% from its 2023 peak, depend on fee and MEV income holding up.

The other front: stablecoins, payments, and tokenized everything DEX volume gets the headlines, but the war’s second front may matter more by 2027, because it is the one institutions actually fund: who carries the tokenized economy.

Ethereum’s position is incumbency at scale. Roughly 70% of stablecoin supply, the deep USDC and USDT float that institutional desks require, and essentially the entire first generation of tokenized funds. When Ondo debuted its SEC-aligned tokenized stock model with BlackRock ETF shares this week, the underlying rails were Ethereum-ecosystem by default. Stablecoin legislation cleared the path for bank issuance and for the consortium models now emerging among major institutions, and banks build where the auditors already have coverage, which is one more network effect compounding for the incumbent.

Solana’s position is velocity and consumer reach. Its $14 billion stablecoin float turns over roughly six times faster than Ethereum’s, because sub-cent fees make stablecoins usable as money instead of just collateral. USDC settles on Solana in under a second for a fraction of a cent, which is why Visa chose it for settlement pilots, why payment processors keep adding it, and why the Solana Developer Platform launched with Mastercard, Worldpay, and Western Union rather than with hedge funds. Solana is also mounting a genuine RWA challenge through Token-2022, whose compliance extensions target exactly the issuer requirements Ethereum handles with bespoke contracts, and both chains now face a third competitor for the same institutional flow in the compliance-native stack being assembled on the XRP Ledger.

The stakes here dwarf the DEX war. Stablecoins are a $320 billion asset class growing through legislation, and tokenized funds are the institutional product with the steepest adoption curve. If Ethereum keeps the float while Solana takes the flow, the split-decision structure of this whole rivalry repeats at a much larger scale, with Ethereum as the vault and Solana as the checkout lane of tokenized finance.

The institutional tiebreaker For most of crypto history, the institutional column belonged to Ethereum without argument. That is the column where 2026 has produced genuine movement.

The regulatory sequence mattered first. The SEC’s March 2025 classification of sixteen digital assets including SOL as commodities dissolved the securities overhang that had kept allocators away, and spot Solana ETFs began trading on October 28, 2025, making SOL the third asset after BTC and ETH with U.S. spot fund access. The flows since then have been small next to Bitcoin’s but directionally embarrassing for Ethereum: through the spring drawdown, Solana ETFs crossed $1 billion in cumulative inflows while Ethereum funds posted a seventeen-day outflow streak that stripped hundreds of millions, and July has opened with ETF flow reports showing ETH and SOL products gaining together while Bitcoin funds bleed. Goldman Sachs disclosures showed over $100 million in SOL exposure, and CalPERS entered the asset class the same quarter.

Solana’s institutional push went beyond funds. The Solana Foundation launched its Developer Platform in March with Mastercard, Worldpay, and Western Union among early adopters, shipped a quantum-readiness plan built on the NIST-standardized Falcon signature scheme in April, and rolled out on-chain, stake-weighted validator governance this week. Token-2022 extensions gave the chain the compliance hooks, confidential transfers, transfer restrictions, interest-bearing instruments, that enterprise issuers require. The pitch that Solana is a casino chain unsuitable for serious money has aged badly.

Ethereum’s institutional position remains the stronger one on stock rather than flow. It custodies the tokenized funds, hosts the deep stablecoin float, and runs the staking infrastructure through which more than 35 million ETH, nearly 29% of supply, secures the network across a million-plus validators. When a treasury desk needs to move nine figures with minimal slippage, Ethereum’s depth is still the only game available. BitMine Immersion bought its way past 5 million ETH this spring precisely on that thesis. But stock is what you accumulated yesterday. Flow is what you are winning today, and the flow has been tilting one direction for over a year.

The uncomfortable items on both ledgers Neither chain gets to run its highlight reel without the blooper file.

Solana’s validator count has collapsed to roughly 795 active validators from more than 2,500 in 2023, a 68% decline that concentrates block production and hands critics a decentralization argument with real teeth. Its DeFi remains thin and concentrated: one aggregator with 95% market share is a single point of failure wearing a market structure costume, and the $270 million Drift exploit showed what happens when a load-bearing protocol breaks. Its volume mix still leans on memecoin speculation, the most cyclical demand source in the industry, and February’s $117 billion month can become a $40 billion month without a single thing going wrong technically.

Ethereum’s problems are quieter and arguably deeper. Lido alone controls roughly 24% of staked ETH, a concentration risk of its own. The rollup roadmap solved scaling and created a value-capture puzzle nobody has answered: if execution fees accrue to Base and Arbitrum while blobs cost pennies, what exactly does ETH the asset earn from Ethereum the ecosystem’s growth? Retail has already voted, migrating to L2s so completely that mainnet active addresses look like a ghost town next to Solana’s. And the fragmentation tax is real: liquidity split across a dozen rollups with seven-day optimistic exits is a worse user experience than one chain with 400-millisecond finality, no matter how elegant the settlement theory. The KelpDAO exploit this spring, which erased $13 billion of TVL in 48 hours of contagion, showed that composability depth cuts in both directions.

Both assets, meanwhile, have been terrible investments this year, a market-wide condition tied to the macro regime we examined in the context of Bitcoin’s liquidity dependence. Fee revenue and active addresses have not protected SOL holders from a 78% peak drawdown, and settlement supremacy has not protected ETH holders from underperforming Bitcoin for most of the cycle. Whatever race is being run, neither token’s chart looks like a victory lap, and on-chain fundamentals have been decoupled from price across the majors for much of 2026.

So who is actually winning? Frame the question three ways and you get three defensible answers.

If the L1 race means base-layer usage, Solana won it, and the margin is no longer close. Two hundred times Ethereum’s L1 throughput, forty times its transaction count, five times its daily fee revenue, and a lead in DEX volume that has survived every market regime since late 2024. By the definition of Layer 1 that existed when the rivalry started, the contest is over.

If the race means where value lives, Ethereum is not losing and may never lose within this cycle. A 68% share of global DeFi TVL, 70% of stablecoin supply, the institutional tokenization pipeline, and the largest developer base in the industry constitute a network-effect fortress that Solana’s growth has dented but nowhere near breached. Capital has inertia, and inertia compounds.

If the race means trajectory, the tape favors Solana with an asterisk. It is winning new users, new listed products, new enterprise integrations, and the ETF flow battle. The asterisk is that trajectory arguments assume the current regime persists, and Solana’s flow-heavy economy is more exposed than Ethereum’s stock-heavy one to the next collapse in speculative appetite. Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade cycle and the second-half protocol roadmap that all major chains have queued for late 2026 could reshuffle the technical comparison again.

The most likely outcome is also the least satisfying for partisans: permanent coexistence with divided territory. Ethereum settles and custodies. Solana executes and trades. Builders already behave as if this is settled, deploying on both by default. The 2025 framing of an L1 war with a single survivor has quietly died, not with a bang but with two chains discovering they are optimized for markets the other cannot serve.

What could flip the board before December Split decisions invite the obvious follow-up: what would actually change the standings? Four live catalysts carry enough weight to move the argument rather than the noise.

Ethereum’s upgrade cycle is the first. The Fusaka window and the broader second-half protocol roadmap target another step-change in data capacity, and the ecosystem’s real prize sits next to it: any credible mechanism that routes L2 economic success back into ETH, whether through based sequencing, native rollup designs, or fee-market reform, would repair the value-capture hole that has haunted the asset since Dencun. Markets have front-run Ethereum upgrades before; a roadmap that finally answers the accrual question would be the first fundamental ETH catalyst in two years.

Firedancer completion is the second. Solana’s independent validator client moving to full deployment removes the single-client risk that institutions cite most, and its throughput headroom opens application categories, full order-book markets, high-frequency payment networks, that no chain currently serves. If even one breakout consumer or enterprise application lands on that capacity, Solana’s volume base diversifies away from memecoins, which neutralizes the strongest bear argument against its fee economy.

ETF mechanics are the third. Staking-enabled fund structures, under active regulatory discussion for both assets, would transform the flow picture: a spot product yielding 3% to 7% natively changes the allocator pitch entirely, and the asset that gets staking approval first inherits a durable flow advantage. Watch the filings, not the influencers.

Treasury companies are the fourth and strangest. BitMine’s multimillion-ETH accumulation and the emerging class of SOL treasury vehicles mean corporate balance sheets now sit inside both ecosystems as permanent, price-insensitive holders. The Strategy playbook applied to ETH and SOL is small today; its growth rate through a recovering market could make treasuries the marginal buyer that decides which token outperforms, independent of every on-chain metric in this article.

The verdict for the second half Ethereum is losing the L1 race as originally defined, and it forfeited that race by choice when it went all-in on rollups. Solana is winning everything measurable at the base layer while still trailing badly where the institutional money actually sits. Watch three numbers through December: whether Ethereum ETF flows recover once its next upgrade lands, whether Firedancer’s full rollout converts Solana’s throughput ceiling into new categories of application, and whether Solana DeFi TVL can hold above $12 billion without memecoin volume subsidizing it. The chain that answers its own weakness first will own the 2027 narrative. Until then, the war everyone expected has settled into something stranger: two winners, two different games, and one increasingly obsolete question.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile, and you can lose your entire investment. Always do your own research. Information current as of July 3, 2026.

Upbit will add Metaplex (MPLX) for BTC and USDT pairs and Nexus (NEX) for a USDT pair on July 3. Metaplex assists in creating infrastructure for digital assets based on the Solana blockchain, and Nexus builds a Layer 1 blockchain. Upbit, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platform, announced the listing of Metaplex (MPLX) and Nexus (NEX). MPLX will be available to trade with BTC and USDT trading pairs on the Solana blockchain platform. NEX will be listed in the USDT market on the Ethereum network. Deposits and withdrawals will start two hours from the time of the announcement.

Scheduled Launch of MPLX and NEX Upbit has announced that MPLX will begin trading at 3:00 PM local time on July 3. Trading for NEX will be launched by the exchange at 6:00 PM local time on July 3. The users have been asked to ensure that deposits happen only through the supported blockchain networks, as deposits made via unsupported networks will not be credited. Upbit has also mentioned that insufficient liquidity may lead to delayed trading due to unfavorable market conditions.

The platform implemented temporary trading restrictions to ensure smooth market operations after listing these two cryptocurrencies. Upbit has put a restriction on buying orders in the first five minutes after trading. All orders, except limit orders, will not be available for 2 hours after listing. Upbit has put a restriction on selling orders that are at least 10% below the previous close price.

Metaplex and Nexus Extend Their Infrastructure Services Metaplex is an infrastructure protocol for digital assets with NFT support, token minting, metadata handling, and mass asset creation in the Solana and Solana Virtual Machine blockchain networks. This protocol allows the standardization of metadata of the assets along with NFT collections, compressed NFTs, and token drops using various ecosystem services. Metaplex also unveiled Agent Registry and Agent Tokens, extending the infrastructure of Metaplex in the direction of on-chain identity registration and token creation. MPLX tokens allow participating in governance, managing treasuries, and certain ecosystem services in the Metaplex DAO.

Nexus builds a Layer 1 blockchain by incorporating verifiable computation capabilities with finance use cases. This network leverages Cosmos SDK, CometBFT, and Ethereum-based smart contracts together with Nexus zkVM for the verification of computing resources from outside the chain. Nexus is also going to extend its ecosystem via Nexus Exchange and the USDX settlement ecosystem. The NEX tokens act as the native gas tokens of the network while staking and compensating computation providers. Upbit also advised users that their deposits should be in compliance with the Travel Rule.

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The fresh $8 million raise for predictive behavioral AI network THEA puts Solana at the center of a quiet but consequential race. Instead of forcing inference computation on-chain—an expensive and slow proposition—the project is building a coordination layer that settles accounts and routes requests while the heavy math stays off-chain. The approach addresses a friction that has kept machine learning outputs from being reliably used in DeFi and on-chain automation. The funding round, led by Maven11 Capital, Spartan Group, ManifoldTrading, HackVC and Fisher8 Capital, arrived as institutional interest in crypto-AI convergence keeps climbing.

Solana has consistently ranked among the top chains by developer activity, as seen in recent weekly developer rankings, and the network’s low-latency architecture makes it an attractive settlement layer for AI coordination. THEA plans to use Solana to manage inference requests, accounting, and settlement, treating the blockchain as a verifiable ledger rather than a compute engine. It is a division of labor that mirrors how certain high-frequency trading systems operate: speed-sensitive logic stays close to the hardware, while finality and dispute resolution happen on-chain.

The Case for Keeping Computation Off-Chain On-chain inference remains a bottleneck. Running neural networks directly on Ethereum or Solana is not only cost-prohibitive but also introduces latency that breaks real-time use cases. THEA’s design acknowledges that machine learning models will run where they perform best—on GPUs, TPUs, or future specialized hardware—while Solana provides an immutable record of who requested what, which model was used, and who should be paid. This separation could unlock a market where AI services are paid for on a per-inference basis, with settlement flowing through SOL or SPL tokens.

The structure also lowers the trust barrier. Rather than requiring every user to audit a model’s output, the network coordinates what answers were delivered and provides a settlement trail. The round included trading firm ManifoldTrading, which suggests institutional interest not just in the technology but in how AI outputs could be plugged into execution environments. A transparent ledger of AI interactions is something that quant funds and automated strategy builders might find particularly useful.

What Solana’s Ecosystem Gains From an AI Settlement Layer THEA’s launch could give Solana-based DeFi protocols a native way to integrate predictive models without building their own infrastructure. If a lending protocol wants to use AI to score borrower risk or a DEX wants to reroute orders based on model-driven slippage forecasts, the coordination layer would handle the invoicing and settlement. These kinds of partnerships mirror other AI-driven Web3 integrations, such as UXLINK and Origins Network, where off-chain compute is paired with on-chain coordination. Teams building on Solana get a middleware that reduces the time from model output to on-chain action.

The timing matters. A string of recent infrastructure deals has pushed the total value of tokenized real-world assets past $20 billion, and on-chain settlement for non-speculative data—such as AI predictions—could be next. If THEA’s model gains traction, Solana might see a new category of transaction volume that does not originate from token swaps or NFT mints but from machine-to-machine invoicing. That would add a different kind of fee base and broaden the network’s utility beyond its current DeFi and memecoin identity.

Open Questions and What to Watch Despite the raise, several things are not yet settled. THEA’s tokenomics have not been disclosed, and it is unclear whether the network will introduce a native token, use SOL as the primary gas and settlement unit, or structure fees in stablecoins. The decision will shape how value accrues and whether the protocol is perceived as a Solana-native asset or an external service that uses Solana as a utility.

Adoption also hinges on how many AI model providers plug into the network. THEA’s coordination layer only works if there is enough supply of predictive behavioral models willing to accept payment through on-chain rails. For now, the networks that dominate AI inference—mostly centralized providers—have shown little interest in crypto settlement. If THEA cannot bridge that gap, the network may struggle to attract volume from serious machine learning teams.

Another variable is Solana’s reliability. While the chain’s uptime has improved, a coordination layer that handles real-time inference requests demands near-perfect block production and minimal state bloat. Even short delays in settlement could create discrepancies between off-chain model results and their on-chain record, opening arbitrage or dispute scenarios. Traders watching THEA should track the ratio of inference requests settled versus failed, if that data becomes public.

Still, the raise signals that venture capital sees value in the plumbing between AI and blockchains, not just in yet another layer-one token or decentralized compute marketplace. If THEA executes, Solana could become the de facto settlement environment for an emerging class of machine intelligence services. The next test is a mainnet launch that shows real usage, not just a well-funded idea.

AUTHOR

Max delves deep into the cryptocurrency realm, with a passion for altcoins and NFTs. Convinced of crypto's transformative potential, he envisions a decentralized financial future. Max's background in the financial sector grants him unique insights into global monetary systems. In his leisure, Max embraces the thrill of adventures and is an avid sports enthusiast, finding balance and rejuvenation away from work.

Securitize began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SECZ on Thursday and launched a tokenized version of its common stock through its regulated platform.

Securitize is now officially a public company, listed on the @NYSE under the ticker SECZ.

Our focus is unchanged: building the regulated infrastructure for the next generation of capital markets.

To everyone who helped us get here, thank you.

Tokenize the World. pic.twitter.com/XVhjA5udA9

— Securitize (@Securitize) July 2, 2026

The listing follows the completion of Securitize’s business combination with Cantor Equity Partners II. The company has brought more than $4 billion in assets onchain through its tokenization infrastructure.

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Eligible investors in the United States will be able to access tokenized SECZ on Avalanche and Solana after completing onboarding, identity verification and jurisdictional eligibility checks.

The tokens are intended to represent the same common stock trading on the NYSE rather than a synthetic product, offshore wrapper or separate share class. Tokenization changes how ownership is recorded and transferred but does not alter the legal nature of the underlying shares or remove applicable transfer restrictions.

Securitize said the rollout makes it the first newly public company to bring its own stock onchain from the start of its life as a listed business. Based on expected shareholder participation, the company also expects SECZ to become the world’s largest tokenized stock.

The launch builds on Securitize’s broader effort to bring public equities onto blockchain infrastructure while preserving direct ownership and shareholder rights. Its platform has previously worked with asset managers including BlackRock, Apollo, KKR and VanEck on tokenized investment products.

Securitize plans to expand the functionality and market infrastructure surrounding tokenized SECZ as its onchain shareholder base develops.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Umbra Privacy has launched a private payroll system on Solana, giving businesses a way to pay employees in $USDC without exposing transaction details on the public blockchain. The product is the latest feature to emerge from the protocol's broader push to make on-chain finance safe for corporate use.

How It Works The payroll system is built on top of Umbra's existing privacy infrastructure. Operating as the first live consumer application deployed on Arcium's Mainnet Alpha, Umbra's environment is engineered on top of Arcium's multi-party computation (MPC) encrypted execution engine and zero-knowledge cryptographic proofs, hiding the identities of the sender and recipient, alongside total transaction values, from public scrutiny by default.

The platform supports multichain funding and offers instant withdrawals to either a crypto wallet or a traditional bank account. The integration introduces native, private fiat onramping and offramping alongside a corporate payroll engine directly inside the Umbra application, enabling users to fund digital asset wallets and accept corporate compensation without exposing their physical identity or bank routing details to public blockchain trackers. This is handled through a partnership with Onramper. "It's about giving people genuine control over their financial lives," said Krutarth Shah, CEO of Umbra. "Integrating Onramper means our users can fund their wallets and receive payroll with the same level of discretion they expect from every other part of the Umbra experience."

Under the newly activated framework, Umbra users can natively purchase digital assets utilizing 24 major fiat currencies without departing the application's secure perimeter. The financial transaction layer relies on Onramper's algorithmic aggregation engine, which dynamically routes each localized payment flow to the most competitive fiat-to-crypto onramp provider worldwide.

Compliance Built In A recurring concern with privacy protocols is regulatory risk. Umbra has addressed this by embedding compliance tooling directly into the product. This structural privacy does not compromise regulatory compliance. Umbra preserves critical enterprise oversight utilities, natively retaining institutional compliance tools such as developer viewing keys and automated transaction risk screening. The payroll product also includes payroll history tracking for internal record-keeping.

Umbra includes a voluntary audit feature allowing transaction history disclosure to regulators. The Solana Foundation's framing of "confidentiality, not anonymity" is deliberate regulatory positioning. Confidentiality around hidden amounts with visible addresses is defensible for business, payroll, and institutional use.

The launch addresses a structural problem that has long made on-chain payroll impractical for businesses. Solana is one of the most transparent blockchains ever built, with every transaction, including sender, recipient, and amount, publicly readable by anyone with a block explorer and a wallet address. DAOs and businesses risk exposing operational data, payroll, or treasury activity on a public ledger. Umbra's payroll feature is designed to close that gap, giving crypto-native companies a viable path to paying staff in digital assets without broadcasting compensation details to competitors or the wider market.

Sources
The Fintech Times: Umbra Integrates Onramper for Private Fiat Ramps and Crypto Payroll
Onramper: Umbra Integration Announcement
Crypto Economy: Umbra Launches Privacy Wallet on Arcium

June 2026 marked another milestone month for tokenization across the Solana ecosystem. Trading activity accelerated to record levels as tokenized equities attracted growing participation from both institutional and retail investors. Financial institutions continued launching regulated investment products on Solana, while tokenized funds, commodities, and real-world assets expanded into new markets.

The month also highlighted the increasing integration between traditional finance and blockchain infrastructure. From tokenized stocks and funds to museum-grade dinosaur fossils, June demonstrated the widening range of assets finding their way onchain.

Here is everything you might have missed:

June 10: Jupiter Adds Leveraged Tokenized Equities Jupiter Exchange integrated SHIFT's leveraged tokenized equities, bringing Series Tokens to Solana.

The products track leveraged stock ETFs, while Jupiter introduced a dedicated screener displaying price, trading volume, holder count, and discount to mark value, making these products easier for users to monitor.

June 12: SpaceX Trading Arrives Onchain Backpack Securities launched tokenized SpaceX stock under the ticker $SPCX on Solana on the same day SpaceX became available in traditional financial markets.

The tokenized asset generated $51 million in trading volume during its first 24 hours, making it one of the strongest launches for a tokenized equity on the network.

The same day, Securitize launched STAC, its tokenized AAA CLO fund, on Solana. The fund is backed by Bank of New York Mellon as custodian and sub-adviser, while Ethena Labs announced plans to allocate $250 million to the product.

June 16: SpaceX Volume Surpasses $100 Million Demand for tokenized SpaceX shares continued to accelerate. 24-hour trading volume for $SPCX exceeded $100 million for the first time, underscoring growing investor interest in tokenized equity exposure.

June 17: Institutional Listings Continue to Expand Ondo Finance announced the addition of 173 new tokenized stocks and ETFs, expanding its catalog to more than 430 traditional financial assets.

On the same day, Onpharma launched a security token offering on Solana with First Block and Crito Capital.

Trading activity also remained strong. Solana recorded $116 million in tokenized equities volume, accounting for approximately 94% of all tokenized stock trading volume across blockchain networks.

$SPCX led activity with nearly $90 million in trading volume, while Backpack accounted for approximately 95% of that trading.

June 21: Collector Crypt Reaches Revenue Milestone Collector Crypt generated more than $5 million in weekly revenue for the first time.

The milestone pushed the platform's cumulative lifetime revenue beyond $68 million, highlighting continued demand for tokenized collectibles within Solana's growing real-world asset ecosystem.

June 22: UK Regulated Fund Launches Onchain $BAGEY, the first publicly available fully native UK-regulated tokenized fund built with BNY, launched on Solana.

The launch represents another example of regulated investment products adopting blockchain infrastructure for fund administration.

June 23: Tokenized Funds and Stocks Reach New Milestones Allfunds, one of the world's largest fund distribution networks, expanded its tokenized funds to Solana. The integration connects more than 3,300 financial firms and nearly €1.8 trillion in administered assets to onchain markets, broadening institutional access to tokenized investment products.

The same day, total tokenized stock transfer volume on Solana surpassed $10 billion, underscoring the rapid growth of tokenized securities activity across the network.

June 24: Tokenized Assets Reach New Highs June 24 produced one of the busiest days of the month for tokenization on Solana. Tokenized assets accounted for approximately 19% of all daily DEX volume on Solana, representing a new all-time high of roughly $569.19 million in trading activity. For the day, tokenized assets generated more trading volume than memecoins.

Tokenized stock trading volume also reached a record $683 million in 24-hour trading volume. Trading activity centered on tokenized shares of SpaceX and Micron, which ranked among the most actively traded assets. Backpack Securities and Sunrise continued to expand the market by listing tokenized SanDisk shares under the ticker $SNDK that same day.

Outside traditional financial assets, JurassicFi announced plans to tokenize Deaton, a museum-grade Triceratops prorsus skull with approximately 60-65% bone completeness and all 3 original horns intact.

June 25: Institutional Adoption Expands Internationally Paxos launched its tokenized gold asset, PAXG, on Solana through Sunrise. The launch marks the first expansion of PAXG beyond Ethereum.

The same day, the Solana ETF SOLZ_KZ began trading on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, providing qualified investors in Kazakhstan with regulated exposure to Solana.

Kazakhstan Exchange also outlined plans to enable domestic companies to issue ETFs and tokenize assets using Solana infrastructure, reflecting growing international interest in blockchain-based financial products.

June 28: Raydium Surpasses $3 Billion Tokenized Equities Volume Raydium surpassed $3 billion in cumulative tokenized equities trading volume after crossing the $2 billion milestone earlier in the month, on June 6.

June 29: Tokenized Equities on Solana Records Its Largest Week Ever Solana achieved its largest week on record for tokenized equities. Weekly trading volume reached approximately $1.36 billion while the network captured 96% of all tokenized stock trading volume across blockchain ecosystems.

The achievement also extended Solana's lead over all Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchains to 56 consecutive weeks, reinforcing its position as the leading network for tokenized equities.

Internet Capital Markets Continue Rapid Expansion Last week, SolanaFloor's The Big Picture podcast went live on X, with Seraphim from the Solana Foundation discussing stocks on Solana, how to solve liquidity issues, what comes next for digital asset tokens, and whether Solana perps can compete. He noted that tokenized equity trading volumes could consistently outpace memecoin trading volumes, driven by growing demand for stocks on Solana. “We have to enable stuff that allows you to trade assets people want to trade, and that's stocks at the moment,” he added.

Open Standard also launched $OUSD, a new stablecoin backed by over 140 partners including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, Coinbase and BlackRock. The protocol promises to distribute earnings from reserves among partners alongside fee-free redemption and minting.

Throughout the month, Solana maintained its leadership in tokenized securities. Record trading volumes, expanding institutional participation, and continued product launches highlighted the network's growing role within global tokenized markets.

“Head of Taking Risk” at Solana Foundation on The Big Picture

Solana price is trading near $77, roughly flat over the past 24 hours, with the broader crypto market holding a cautious equilibrium as Q2 2026 closes. The session’s most consequential data point is not a price move, it is a revenue figure: Solana’s decentralized application ecosystem generated $257 million in Q2 2026, topping every Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchain on the market for the ninth consecutive quarter.

Among notable altcoin moves, Ethereum is up roughly 1.2% over 24 hours while Base-native tokens show mixed performance. Total market 24-hour volume is tracking near $98 billion, marginally above the prior session, suggesting participation is steady rather than surging.

DISCOVER: The Next 1000x Crypto Gem Before It Lists on Binance

Nine Quarters, One Network: What Solana’s Revenue Streak Actually Means The central question this data raises: is Solana’s dominance a cyclical accident or a structural reality? Nine consecutive quarters of leading all blockchains in dApp revenue, a streak running since early 2024, argues strongly for the latter. Ethereum, Tron, Base, and Hyperliquid have each had moments at the top. None has dislodged Solana.

The $257 million Q2 2026 figure represents a slight year-over-year dip from Q2 2025’s $271 million, but the competitive gap remains wide. According to Syndica’s January 2026 deep dive, Solana held 41% of total Web3 dApp revenue at the start of the year, up from 33% in December 2025, with global Web3 dApp revenue totalling $385 million that month and Solana’s $158 million slice representing a 72% month-over-month jump.

That is not a plurality. That is a near-majority of an industry-wide metric held by a single network.

📊DATA: In Q2 2026, @Solana dApps generated $257M in revenue, leading all L1 and L2 blockchains for the 9th consecutive quarter. pic.twitter.com/syrtL3LFjY

— SolanaFloor (@SolanaFloor) July 1, 2026

Protocol-level data from TheStreet adds granularity. In Q1 2026, Solana posted $292 million in dApp revenue, with two applications accounting for the bulk of it: Pump.fun generated $123 million (42% of the network total) and Axiom contributed $58 million (20%).

Those two platforms alone, a memecoin launchpad and a trading terminal, captured nearly two-thirds of Solana’s entire quarterly haul. The concentration is notable: Syndica’s data found the top eight Solana dApps accounting for 78% of the network’s own revenue.

Weekly competitive data reinforces the trend’s durability. In the week ending April 20, 2026, Solana posted $16.94 million in weekly dApp revenue, its fifth consecutive week at number one, ahead of Hyperliquid at $14.18 million and Ethereum at $13.55 million.

In May 2026, Solana generated $91 million in monthly application revenue versus Hyperliquid’s $53 million and Ethereum’s $52 million, according to DefiLlama data cited by Bitcoin.com.

DISCOVER: Best Meme Coin ICOs to Invest in 2026

The Memecoin Risk Embedded in Solana’s Revenue Model Blockchain revenue figures matter precisely because they are harder to game than alternative metrics. Total value locked, TVL, the sum of assets deposited into DeFi protocols – can be inflated through recursive deposits, where the same capital is counted multiple times across lending and liquidity pools. Daily active addresses can be manufactured. Revenue cannot: it reflects users paying fees for something they chose to use.

That said, Solana’s revenue mix carries a concentration risk that investors in SOL should price honestly. Memecoins and memecoin-adjacent trading infrastructure, Pump.fun being the clearest example, have driven a disproportionate share of the network’s fee income. If speculative appetite in that category cools materially, the quarterly totals will register it.

The $200 million-plus threshold is the number to watch for Q3 2026: can Solana hold it without a memecoin trading supercycle providing the floor? Solana memecoin DEX volume trends heading into July 2026 suggest the category remains active, though below its early-2026 peak.

Solana's revenue is twofold. People only talk about half of it, but retail will trade both

Memes: Pumpfun is the memecoin casino, which brings attention and volumes to the chain

Then you have productive assets like MetaDAO, perps onchain , etchttps://t.co/ypVkyFVE4g pic.twitter.com/vdtSfDLQQQ

— Ansem 🐂🀄️ (@blknoiz06) June 25, 2026

The more constructive read is that DeFi and consumer applications are maturing as a second revenue pillar. Axiom’s sustained presence in the top two earners, $58 million in Q1 2026 after a breakout $126.6 million in Q2 2025, according to The Currency Analytics, shows that trading infrastructure beyond pure memecoin issuance is generating durable fees.

For a fuller picture of how institutional capital is positioning around Solana’s structural lead despite recent price softness, the SOL institutional adoption and price divergence analysis lays out the tension clearly.

Meanwhile, Ethereum’s path back to dApp revenue leadership runs through its Layer 2 ecosystem, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, but that revenue remains fragmented across multiple chains. Aggregated, it still does not consistently match what Solana generates as a single unified network.

Ethereum’s own challenges at the base layer, detailed in the current Ethereum price and key levels outlook, compound the difficulty of closing that gap in the near term.

Nine quarters of leading all blockchains in dApp revenue is no longer a streak. It is a structural baseline, and the Q3 2026 data will show whether Solana’s non-memecoin revenue base has grown enough to defend it independently.

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Solana Foundation says onchain governance is now live, letting validators with at least 100,000 SOL delegated open proposals that go to a stake-weighted vote once they clear 15% cluster support.

Solana Foundation announced Wednesday that onchain governance is live on the network, letting validators propose and vote on protocol-level decisions through a system called Solana Governance Proposals, or SGPs.

The mechanism is fully onchain, stake-weighted and verified by Merkle proof, according to the Foundation's announcement thread. Any validator with at least 100,000 SOL delegated can open a proposal, and a proposal only opens for a vote once it clears 15% of cluster stake support. Delegators who disagree with how their validator voted, or whose validator did not vote at all, can override that vote using their own stake weight.

Merkle-Verified VotesThe system runs on two onchain programs described in the project's technical documentation: an NCN, or Node Consensus Network, snapshot program that establishes verifiable stake weights, and a voting program called svmgov. Whitelisted operators independently build Merkle trees of validator stake from the Solana ledger and vote on a canonical snapshot. Once they agree, a consensus result publishes onchain, and validators prove their stake weight against it with a Merkle proof when they vote.

The two onchain programs are deployed as `ncn-snapshot` and `svmgov`, according to the governance documentation, with the snapshot program building the canonical stake tree that the voting program checks against for every ballot cast.

SGPs Versus SIMDsSGPs sit apart from Solana Improvement Documents, or SIMDs, the process core developers already use for technical protocol changes. Per the solana-governance-proposals repository, a SIMD answers "how exactly do we do this," decided by technical review from core developers, while an SGP answers "should we do this," decided by a stake-weighted onchain vote. By default, decision-making stays with core developers and the SIMD process; an SGP interrupts that path only when the 15% stake-support threshold is met, and does not block a SIMD from moving forward on its own.

The Foundation pointed validators and delegators to the governance dashboard, documentation and the svmgov codebase to start participating.

The launch follows a run of Solana Foundation initiatives aimed at institutional and validator participation, including a native payments rail for subscriptions and allowances and MoneyGram joining the network as a validator.

https://tenor.com/search/chain-link-gif-gifs

World XYZ, a prominent prediction market on the Solana blockchain, has announced its adoption of Chainlink as its primary oracle infrastructure. This integration aims to enhance the speed and accuracy of market resolutions, particularly in categories such as cryptocurrency, sports, elections, and macroeconomic events. Chainlink serves as a critical link, connecting Solana’s smart contracts to real-world data through verified data aggregation from independent node operators. This move is expected to provide immediate resolution and payout capabilities, bypassing traditional banking delays through stablecoin rails.

The integration of Chainlink is seen as a significant enhancement for World XYZ, addressing the “oracle problem” by ensuring data accuracy and reliability. With Chainlink’s established network, which has facilitated over $6.9 trillion in transaction value since 2022, the partnership is anticipated to bolster confidence in prediction markets on Solana. Market participants may interpret this development as supportive of higher trust and efficiency, potentially influencing market dynamics across various sectors.

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Market reactions have been observed in related prediction markets, specifically in the pricing of Bitcoin. Current data suggests a notable increase in confidence for Bitcoin to reach certain price ranges by July 1, with an 84% likelihood of Bitcoin being priced between $58,000 and $60,000, up from 38% just 24 hours ago. This shift appears consistent with enhanced market confidence stemming from World XYZ’s integration of Chainlink.

Key Takeaways World XYZ’s integration of Chainlink appears consistent with efforts to enhance prediction market efficiency and reliability. Market pricing suggests increased confidence in Bitcoin price predictions, with significant movements in sub-market odds. Chainlink’s established infrastructure is expected to provide immediate payout capabilities, enhancing user experience on World XYZ. What to Watch Market participants may look for further developments in World XYZ’s performance metrics following the integration. Any additional partnerships or technological advancements could further influence market dynamics. The impact on Bitcoin’s market pricing will be crucial to observe, especially as additional data from Chainlink is utilized. Watch for statements from key financial regulators or announcements from World XYZ that could further shape market perceptions.

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Bitcoin Price On July 1 2026

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h July 1 0.5% — — View market → July 1 9% — — View market → July 1 3.6% — — View market → July 1 0.1% — — View market → July 1 87.5% — — View market → July 1 2026 0.1% — — View market → July 1 2026 0.2% — — View market → What Price Will Hyperliquid Hit Before 2027

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h December 31 35% — — View market → January 1 2027 5.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 4.6% — — View market → January 1 2027 63.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 11.1% — — View market → January 1 2027 5.5% — — View market →

Beyond the details provided by the official announcement, the timing of the alliance between South Korea's third-largest internet-only bank and a public blockchain says a lot.

On June 19, Toss Bank, an online-only bank in Korea, and the Solana Foundation, an organization that supports Solana, signed a memorandum of agreement in Seoul. This is the first direct relationship between these two entities.

To see whether stablecoins can help with international transactions and remittances cheaper and more effectively than conventional banking systems, the effort will go through a proof-of-concept phase.

Currently, seven distinct currencies power Toss's operations in thirty different nations.

The deal was sealed at Toss Bank's headquarters in Seoul by Park Jin-hyun, head of strategy, and Lily Liu, president of the Solana Foundation.

No binding legal force may be exerted by the memorandum of understanding. The significance of the element is overshadowed by the surrounding context.

The IPO Subtext

Reports indicate that Viva Republica, the parent company of Toss Bank, is valued at more than $10 billion, with some estimations coming close to $20 billion.

The corporation is preparing for an American IPO.

The paid-in capital of Toss Bank has increased to almost 1.4 trillion won through six rounds of fundraising, with the organization successfully securing over $1.2 billion from major investors including GIC, Sequoia China, and Kleiner Perkins.

A prospectus is improved in three major ways compared to a remittance feature alone when an agreement is reached with a blockchain foundation four months before a listing roadshow.

At first, this changes Viva Republica's image from that of a small-town neobank to that of an important participant in the international payments system, interacting with a worldwide payments industry that, according to some estimates, is nearly $320 trillion.

This narrative, in contrast to being referred to as "Korean Chime," receives a different valuation on Nasdaq.

Next, it highlights a compliance-oriented strategy by highlighting features like AML/KYC integration, a well-established banking license, and regulatory frameworks.

US institutional investors, who differentiate between licensed financial tech firms investigating blockchain and those operating in the unregulated cryptocurrency arena, find this very attractive.

As a third benefit, blockchain settlement may lead to lower marginal costs per transaction, which is an important factor for pre-IPO margin calculations.

This is not just an attempt to sweeten the sale. The time between the events of "MOU signed" and "shipped product" should be taken into account when determining values, not disregarded.

What's Actually Being Tested

The mechanics are purposefully limited in their use. The Solana Foundation supplies the infrastructure for settlement, while Toss oversees the user experience and financial services.

In the first stage, we test the waters to see if we can transfer stablecoins on the Solana network and integrate settlement with existing remittance processes in a way that complies with the anti-money-laundering, know-your-customer, and consumer protection rules that govern Toss's licensed transfer operations.

In January 2026, Toss expanded its foreign remittance service to 30 countries; this proof of concept builds upon that base instead of beginning from square one.

If the first phase is successful, the next steps will involve tokenizing physical assets, expanding the range of digital assets offered, and payment methods.

When contrasted with the antiquated SWIFT system, which is weighed down by long settlement delays and various intermediary fees, Solana's near-instant finality and transaction costs of a fraction of a penny stand out.

The uptime record has improved greatly since the network's reputation was established by the failures.

The fact that Solana has gone more than 15 months without a major consensus failure is taken seriously by institutional risk committees as proof of reliability, not luck.

Skepticism is evident, nevertheless, because the viewpoint that "Solana requires three years without an outage" is still voiced, even in comment letters sent to the SEC.

In late 2025, with the release of Firedancer and the upcoming Alpenglow consensus update, validator client diversity will be implemented to resolve concerns by drastically decreasing the finality time from 12 seconds to 150 milliseconds.

These innovations address the widespread doubt by providing technological answers.

Despite increases in throughput and uptime, they haven't totally resolved the issue; the number of validators has reduced from over 2,500 to about 800, suggesting a tendency towards concentration that goes against the narrative of decentralization.

Korea's Crowded Stablecoin Field

Solana has had and will continue to have many institutional partners in Korea, including Toss.

A pilot initiative centered on stablecoin payments was launched in April by Shinhan Card and the Solana Foundation. Shinhan Card is the top credit card provider in the country.

Wavebridge and Solana have separately signed an MOU that will center on a won-pegged stablecoin developed for use by institutions. In conjunction with well-known Korean financial institutions, this project will introduce on-chain settlement and tokenized deposit features.

Currently, eight different commercial banks are undergoing regulatory examination as they develop a KRW stablecoin that is built on trust and backed by deposits.

A wholesale CBDC and tokenized-deposit trial is underway at the Bank of Korea, and 100,000 users are a part of it.

This project lays the groundwork for a compliant innovation in bank-grade stablecoin remittance products, rather than a strategy to take advantage of regulatory loopholes.

The tendency is toward more scrutiny, not less, and that framework is changing fast.

The Financial Intelligence Unit of South Korea pushed for the elimination of the worldwide minimum transaction threshold for the Travel Rule during the June 15–19 FATF plenary in Paris.

The Toss-Solana signing occurred around the same time as this endeavor, as they argued that the current limit of 1 million won (about $730) promotes "smurfing," the practice of dividing large transactions into smaller sums in order to avoid detection.

That threshold will be eliminated entirely on August 20, 2026, according to a change to the Enforcement Decree in Korea.

Furthermore, stablecoins used in international transactions would be classified as an official "means of payment" under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act under the Digital Asset Basic Act, which is Korea's "Phase 2" framework.

It is expected to be implemented beginning in December 2026 and will provide a new registration system for cross-border virtual-asset transfer enterprises as well as mandate over 100% reserve backing.

Now is the time for a financial institution to position itself ahead of that deadline while still functioning inside a regulated and compliance environment.

Adjustments will be made to improve operations by a financial technology business that transitions later on, beyond its existing scope.

The Market's Verdict, So Far: Muted

As trading activity increased by single-digit percentages, SOL's price rose slightly to around $74 after the news.

It was already difficult to pin the shifts in risk assets that week on the Toss news alone when concomitant reports about U.S.-Iran peace talks began making headlines.

There is meaning in that muted reaction.

The market has grown accustomed to discounting collaborations announced at this level until concrete proof-of-concept data and regulatory permissions are revealed.

This trend has been seen before with Shinhan, Western Union’s Solana-based stablecoin attempts, and a slew of bank MOUs.

Until the end of June, the price of SOL ranged from $60 to $88.

A weekly closing below the $60-65 area might imply a probable collapse towards $30, according to analysts.

Even though the network has processed more than 100 billion transactions in its history, spot Solana ETFs have had net outflows as late as June 26.

Forming the crucial structural framework for the Toss agreement is the difference between rising on-chain use milestones and lacklustre ETF flows, as well as a price that is still around two-thirds below its all-time highs.

Among the many prominent institutional relationships that Solana is amassing are those with Toss, Shinhan, Western Union, and integrations with Visa-related commerce, as well as a staking ETF linked to Morgan Stanley.

Supporters of the changes are hoping that the network's risk premium would go down as a result.

Although it has improved, its dependability history is still not up to the long-term criteria that institutional risk teams are looking for, and it still has validator concentration and an unsolved securities-classification issue.

The Takeaway

Rather than being a finished solution, the Toss-Solana MOU shows a major path for the future of Korean banking infrastructure.

The biggest neobanks in Korea aren't sitting on their hands; instead, they're getting ready for the impending foreign-exchange revamp in December and the tightening of the Travel Rule in August.

Rethinking the best way for US allocators to model the company has been prompted by the incorporation of a blockchain framework into Viva Republica's IPO story.

This bodes well for Solana's institutional pipeline, which is large, strong, and growing; yet, until the proof-of-concept data passes compliance review and a working product is released, these agreements are only declarations of intent.

All eyes are on the memorandum of agreement. The results that matter the most will be disclosed in the second round of testing after Toss begins to connect its AML/KYC systems and partner networks.

Nasdaq-listed crypto treasury firm Solana Company has signed a significant cooperation agreement to aid the development of Alatau City, Kazakhstan’s planned, digital-focused megacity. The partnership was unveiled during the Alatau City Roadshow held this June in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, highlighting Solana Company’s ambition to support the region’s expansive digital infrastructure plans.

Agreement scope definedUnder the memorandum of understanding, both parties will work to advise on establishing blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure for Alatau City. The roadshow events in China also resulted in a total of 30 partnership agreements with a combined investment potential exceeding $6 billion.

Joseph Chee, Chairman and CEO of Solana Company, expressed his expectations to deepen the partnership and expand the Solana ecosystem’s presence across the region.

The collaboration between Solana Company and Alatau City will cover four main areas: digital asset treasury solutions, blockchain infrastructure deployment, accelerating institutional adoption of blockchain technology, and developing robust digital platforms for the city.

Alisher Abdykadyrov, CEO of the Alatau City Authority, specified that the agreement also includes Solana Company’s participation in the Alatau Crypto Cluster. This cluster is envisioned as a designated pilot zone and economic area within the new city, where the use of cryptocurrencies for daily transactions will be permitted.

Ties between Kazakhstan and Solana deepenThe agreement marks the latest move strengthening Kazakhstan’s relationship with the broader Solana ecosystem. Notably, last year saw the launch of Central Asia’s inaugural Solana Economic Zone in the nation’s capital of Astana, established in partnership with the Solana Foundation.

Just last week, the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) introduced its first Solana ETF, providing investors access to regulated investment instruments linked to SOL price movements—making Central Asia’s major exchanges more accessible to digital asset investors.

Mini Glossary: An ETF is an exchange-traded fund tracking the performance of an asset or index. A Solana ETF allows investors regulated access to SOL’s price moves without direct token custody.

During the same roadshow, the Solana Foundation also signed a separate memorandum of understanding with Alatau City, pledging support to expand the city’s blockchain capacity and infrastructure.

Alatau City’s ambitious vision faces cautious realitiesKazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev introduced the Alatau City project to the international community in May 2024. However, despite its global unveiling, the project remains in the early stages of planning and development, with many fundamentals still under consideration.

Plans envision Alatau City as an integrated smart city from the outset, anchored on artificial intelligence, digital identity, and blockchain technology. The project also foresees the use of low-altitude aerial vehicles, robotaxis, and autonomous drones for transportation and logistics, while proposing that the city’s economy be powered by hydrogen energy.

Nonetheless, the initiative faces significant hurdles. Independent assessment reports released in March highlighted concerns from both the National Bank of Kazakhstan and the Agency for Financial Monitoring about the potential need for constitutional amendments to support a crypto-based economy.

Additional independent sources have pointed to ongoing fundamental infrastructure issues in Alatau City’s designated region, such as continued challenges in accessing basic utilities like natural gas, water, electricity, and internet. While the project’s vision remains compelling for the future, these obstacles suggest considerable implementation timelines ahead.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Solana is now processing roughly 100 million non-vote transactions per day, sustaining real-time throughput between 1,200 and 1,900 TPS, and pulling in $100 million in fees.

By June 2026, daily non-vote transactions averaged 102.7 million. Daily active addresses have ranged between 2 and 5 million throughout 2026, with peaks surpassing 4 million users on a single day.

What the numbers actually mean TPS figures can be misleading in crypto. Most chains inflate throughput by counting validator votes alongside real user transactions. Solana separates the two, which makes the 100 million daily non-vote figure the honest version of network activity.

The sustained TPS range sits between 1,000 and 4,000, with real-time snapshots consistently landing in the 1,200 to 1,900 band.

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Applications built on top of Solana generated $2.39 billion in revenue during 2025, a 46% year-over-year increase. Seven individual applications each crossed the $100 million revenue threshold.

The infrastructure behind the activity Solana’s development team has been incrementally raising block compute limits, with proposals targeting around 100 million compute units per block.

The demand driving these upgrades is not coming from one source. DeFi protocols, stablecoin transfers, and payment applications are all contributing to baseline network load.

The network has also weathered a broader industry-wide compression in fee revenue that hit most Layer-1 chains. Solana maintained $100 million in fees during a period when competitors were watching their fee income shrink.

What investors should be watching Seven Solana-based applications each generating over $100 million in revenue individually is the kind of ecosystem depth that took Ethereum years to develop.

The daily active address range of 2 to 5 million creates a volatile but high floor for network engagement. Sustained activity above 4 million daily addresses would signal the high-end numbers are becoming the baseline.

Solana has kept fees low by design, which drives adoption but also caps per-transaction revenue. The network’s ability to compensate through raw volume, 100 million transactions daily, is currently working.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

@solana is registering its busiest stretch in months. Active addresses on the network climbed to 4.51 million since Saturday, the strongest reading since February, according to @SantimentData. The catalyst is not memecoins or a new token launch. It is tokenized stocks, with xStocks activity picking up sharply and $SOL's rebound above key levels drawing traders back into the ecosystem.

Record volumes in tokenized equity trading Equity trading on Solana broke records this week. Daily tokenized stock trading on Solana hit a $644 million all-time high on June 24, more than tripling the previous record of $187.9 million set just eight days earlier, the same day tokenized assets surpassed memecoins as a share of Solana spot DEX volume for the first time, with tokenized assets at 17% of spot volume against memecoins at 12%. Much of the surge was driven by specific TradFi catalysts: Backpack Securities and Sunrise launched SPCX, a 1:1 share-backed SpaceX token, on June 12, the same day SpaceX listed on Nasdaq, followed by tokenized Micron (MU) on June 22, timed to Micron's earnings release.

During the week of June 15 to June 21, Solana processed $1.298 billion in tokenized stock trades, representing 95% of the global total for that period. Cumulatively, tokenized stocks on Solana hit $4.9 billion in volume during the first half of 2026, a sixfold increase from the $775 million recorded in the second half of 2025. By June 23, cumulative transfer volume for tokenized stocks on the network had crossed $10 billion. Cross-chain, tokenized equity trading hit $5.3 billion in May 2026, a 44% month-on-month increase.

More than a memecoin replacement Analysts see this as more than a short-term volume spike. Solana is becoming a go-to chain for real trading activity, not just speculation. Tokenized stocks, DeFi usage, stablecoins, and retail-friendly apps are all giving users more reasons to interact on-chain. Solana's low transaction costs and high throughput make it well-suited for the small, frequent trades common among retail investors, with fractional ownership and around-the-clock trading offering access that conventional brokerage accounts do not.

The composition shift carries wider implications for the Solana ecosystem. For a network that built much of its reputation on speculative memecoin activity, the rise of tokenized stocks brings real-world assets and more stable value propositions to the chain. If the surge in active addresses holds into next week, it strengthens the case that $SOL's recent bounce has genuine network activity behind it, not just leverage.

Regulatory uncertainty remains the key overhang. Tokenized equities must comply with securities laws across different jurisdictions, and the rules governing how these products are issued, traded, and settled continue to evolve. xStocks products are not available to users in the US, Canada, UK, or Australia under current access rules. Whether the volume surge proves durable will depend as much on regulatory clarity as on network performance.

Sources:
Crypto Briefing: Solana tokenized stocks trading volume surges to $4.9B in H1 2026
Solana Compass: Tokenized Assets Flip Memecoins in Solana Spot Volume
Value The Markets: Solana Sets New Record in Tokenized Stocks Trading Volume

Solana’s decentralized exchange ecosystem just quietly did something that would have sounded absurd two years ago. It out-traded some of the biggest centralized exchanges on the planet.

During the week of June 12-18, Solana DEXs processed $7.19 billion in spot trading volume. That figure placed the network ahead of Coinbase, which handled roughly $6.39 billion, and Kraken, which came in around $4.37 billion. The only centralized venues that stayed ahead were Binance at $34.39 billion and Bybit at $9.47 billion.

The numbers behind the surge Solana’s cumulative DEX volume for 2025 hit $1.6 trillion, capturing roughly 11.92% of the global market. That makes it the second-largest DEX market worldwide, trailing only Binance’s broader ecosystem.

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On one Thursday in mid-June, Solana’s DEX volume reportedly surpassed that of the New York Stock Exchange.

The platforms driving this activity are familiar names in the Solana ecosystem. Jupiter, the dominant aggregator that routes trades across multiple liquidity sources, sits at the center. Raydium, Orca, and Meteora handle large chunks of the direct trading volume.

What’s fueling the fire Memecoins deserve a lot of the credit, or blame, depending on your perspective. Solana has become the default launchpad for speculative token trading. The network’s low fees and fast confirmation times make it ideal for the kind of rapid-fire trading that memecoins attract.

Stablecoin pairs have become a significant portion of Solana’s DEX activity. DePIN projects, which tokenize physical infrastructure networks, have also contributed meaningful trading volume.

Throughout 2025 and into 2026, Solana has competed closely with Ethereum in DEX volume metrics.

What this means for investors Coinbase and Kraken generate revenue primarily through trading fees. When volume migrates to decentralized venues, those revenue streams face direct pressure.

Investors watching this space should pay attention to a few key risks. Solana’s network has a history of outages, though reliability has improved significantly. Regulatory scrutiny of DEX platforms is intensifying globally. There’s also concentration risk: Jupiter handles a disproportionate share of routing, which means a single protocol failure could cascade across the ecosystem.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Ansem, one of the most recognized voices in the Solana ecosystem, has airdropped roughly $7 million worth of the $ANSEM memecoin to Solana users. The distribution campaign, which unfolded between June 27 and June 29, represents one of the largest influencer-driven token giveaways in recent memory.

The goal is ambitious: grow the $ANSEM holder base from approximately 25,000 wallets to 1 million.

Inside the airdrop mechanics Ansem, who posts under the handle @blknoiz06, controls an estimated 604 million $ANSEM tokens. That’s somewhere between 60% and 66% of the total supply, worth anywhere from $30 million to $71 million depending on which price snapshot you use.

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The distribution methods varied across rounds. Some recipients received as little as $23 in tokens, while larger community-focused rounds engaged participants through social actions like following accounts or leaving comments.

Ansem has framed the initiative as a redistribution of Pump.fun creator fees rather than a traditional token launch. Those creator fees reportedly ranged from approximately $200,000 to $378,000 in a single week, providing a recurring revenue stream that funds ongoing distributions.

The numbers behind the frenzy The $ANSEM token, nicknamed “The Black Bull,” has seen its market cap climb above $66 million during late June 2026.

Early participants have done extraordinarily well. One trader reportedly turned an initial $2,330 investment into over $614,000, a 261x return.

Community building or concentration risk The $ANSEM token’s value proposition is, quite literally, one person’s reputation and willingness to keep distributing tokens. Ansem has indicated a commitment to further airdrops tied to the rising market cap, suggesting a structured plan rather than a one-off event.

Even after distributing $7 million worth of tokens, Ansem’s wallet still controls a dominant share of the supply. A 60%-plus ownership stake in any token means one entity has the theoretical ability to crash the price at any moment.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Key takeaways:

SOL’s rebound to $72 shows bullish futures and airdrop hopes, but falling TVL and low DEX volumes point to fragile onchain demand.Tokenized stocks spark hype on Solana, yet Pump.fun dependence and Hyperliquid competition threaten sustained SOL momentum.Solana native token SOL jumped to $72 on Friday, distancing itself from the $64 lows the prior day. Part of traders’ optimism stemmed from the stellar growth of tokenized stock trading, fueled by the AI sector. However, increasing competition in decentralized application networks could limit SOL’s short-term upside.

Solana tokenized stocks 24-hour volumes, USD. Source: Jupiter Aggregator

Tokenized stocks on Solana traded over $113 million in 24 hours, according to Jupiter Aggregator data. However, the relatively thin liquidity in the automated market-making pools raised concerns, especially as multiple issuers compete for similar products. Still, some of those tokens launched only recently, which might explain the low number of holders in most cases.

Blockchains ranked by DeFi Total Value Locked (TVL), USD. Source: DefiLlama

The Total Value Locked (TVL) on the Solana network dropped 11% over the past month, while the Ethereum layer-2 Base reduced the gap. Negative highlights on Solana TVL include a 19% decline in Kamino, a 20% trim by Binance Staked SOL, and a 17% decline in Raydium. The tokenization platform xStocks, on the other hand, posted 31% growth in TVL.

Solana weekly DEX volumes & DApps revenue, USD. Source: DefiLlama

Decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes on Solana fell to $10 billion per week from $30 billion in early February, coinciding with a downtrend in decentralized application (DApp) revenues. Thus, regardless of the successful launch of tokenized tech stocks and equity indexes, demand for SOL on blockchain processing remains subdued.

Solana’s dependence on Pump.fun and increased competition in tokenized launchesMore concerningly, 30% of DApp revenue on Solana came from the token launch platform Pump.fun, which depends heavily on memecoin activity. A CoinGecko report revealed that 80% of the 18.7 million tokens launched in less than 48 hours, while 55% of the addresses involved lost up to $1,000 according to Dune data.

SOL perpetual futures annualized funding rate. Source: Laevitas

Demand for bullish leverage on SOL futures increased on Friday, pushing the funding rate to its highest level in June. The current 10% level is far from displaying excessive confidence, as the 6% to 12% range is typically deemed neutral. Still, the 14% gains since the $64 low on Thursday managed to reverse the bearishness marked by negative funding rates.

Part of SOL investors’ optimism stems from anticipation of airdrops on the network, although the timing of those tokens' launch remains uncertain. Highlights include OnRe reinsurance with $200 million in TVL, Bulk perpetual DEX with an aggregate open interest of $325 million, and Loopscale lending platform at $79 million in TVL.

It might be premature to claim that SOL is bound to reclaim the $80 mark, last seen on June 1, given increased competition in tokenized stock trading from Hyperliquid and centralized exchanges on competing blockchains. OKX, for instance, formed a strategic partnership with the NYSE parent company using Ethereum-based systems.

This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph's Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.

You can now trade a memory-chip ETF from your Solana wallet. Sunrise DeFi, a platform built by Wormhole Labs, has launched a tokenized version of the Roundhill Memory ETF, ticker $DRAM, on Solana’s Jupiter exchange.

What $DRAM actually is The underlying asset here is the Roundhill Memory ETF, which trades on traditional markets under the Cboe BZX exchange with the ticker DRAM. That fund launched on April 2, 2026, and quickly attracted billions in assets under management as AI-driven demand for memory chips accelerated.

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Sunrise DeFi’s contribution is wrapping that ETF into a token that lives natively on Solana. The $DRAM token is now live on Jupiter, Solana’s dominant decentralized exchange aggregator, which handles swaps and lending across the ecosystem. This isn’t Sunrise DeFi’s first rodeo. The platform has previously handled the integration of PAX Gold (PAXG) and Ethena’s ENA token on Solana, building a track record of ensuring liquidity from day one for newly tokenized assets.

The bigger picture: tokenized equities flood Solana $DRAM isn’t arriving in isolation. It’s part of a broader wave of tokenized traditional financial products landing on Solana throughout 2026. Ondo Global Markets and Securitize are among the firms actively working to bring tokenized equities and funds to the network. Jupiter has become the natural landing pad for these products, serving as the connective tissue between tokenized real-world assets and Solana’s existing DeFi ecosystem.

Sunrise DeFi, designed specifically by Wormhole Labs to facilitate these integrations, is positioning itself as the go-to bridge between traditional finance products and Solana’s DeFi rails. Wormhole’s cross-chain messaging infrastructure gives it a natural advantage here, since moving assets across ecosystems is literally what the protocol was built for.

What this means for investors Tokenized ETFs remove several friction points from traditional investing. No brokerage account needed. No market hours. No T+1 settlement.

For memory-chip bulls specifically, $DRAM offers a way to express that thesis entirely within the DeFi ecosystem. Instead of holding the ETF in a brokerage and crypto in a separate wallet, traders can now manage both exposures in a single interface. That composability—the ability to use $DRAM as collateral for loans or pair it in liquidity pools—is where tokenized assets genuinely differentiate themselves from their traditional counterparts.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Institutional moves in a volatile market are rarely a coincidence.

On the macro side, things are still looking risk-off. Over $100 billion has flowed out of crypto this week, dragging total market cap down to $1.99 trillion, levels not seen since September 2024.

Clearly, the market is in a weak phase, where technical downside could start lining up with softer on-chain signals.

But is Solana starting to diverge from the broader trend? From a technical view, SOL’s 5.7% weekly pullback shows it’s still tracking the wider market weakness, and a move toward $60 isn’t off the table if pressure continues.

That said, Grayscale’s move has definitely sparked some attention around SOL’s Q3 setup.

Source: X As the post above highlights, Grayscale has cut its Spot Solana [SOL] ETF annual fee to 0.19%, down from 0.35%. More importantly, that now puts it among the lowest-fee Solana ETFs in the market (tied with FT), which is a pretty aggressive positioning shift compared to its earlier standing. 

However, when you look at the recent move by Morgan Stanley, Grayscale’s decision doesn’t seem random. On Thursday, the firm filed amended Form S-1 statements with the SEC for its ETF lineup, signaling plans to undercut current market offerings with a 0.14% fee for its Solana ETF (MSOL).

In essence, Grayscale looks like it’s reacting to growing fee competition in the ETF space.

Notably, timing matters here. Solana’s technical setup is still weak, but institutional interest hasn’t really faded. Instead, it appears that positioning is continuing or rotating quietly even as broader market conditions stay soft.

And when you factor in Solana’s on-chain activity, these strategic moves don’t look random. 

Institutional flows hint at Solana Q3 setup  The market is betting on a strong foundation building for Solana over the next 18 months.

At the developer level, this is driven by tokenomics improvements, tokenized asset trading, and renewed speculation across meme coins and AI plays. On top of that, Solana’s RWA sector is already seeing record activity this year.

The RWA ecosystem has surpassed $3.10 billion in total value, hitting a new all-time high, while the number of holders has crossed 290,000.

Supporting this view, Multicoin co-founder Tushar Jain says Hyperliquid [HYPE] is “complementary” to the firm’s SOL positions, with Solana leading in spot trading, while Hyperliquid leads in derivatives. Jain adds that while the two may compete, Multicoin expects both to outperform the rest of the field.

Source: X Against this backdrop, Grayscale’s latest move extends beyond simple fee competition.

Further supporting Solana ETF momentum, the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE), one of Central Asia’s largest exchanges, has listed the Volatility Shares Solana ETF (SOLZ), adding another layer of institutional access and global distribution to the ecosystem narrative.

Hence, calling Solana’s Q3 setup a strong institutional cycle for SOL might not be too far-fetched. Instead, with ETF momentum and on-chain signals starting to converge, Solana increasingly looks like it’s entering a phase where institutional flows could start catching up with fundamentals.

Final Summary

Tokenized stocks trading on Solana hit $4.9 billion in volume during the first half of 2026, a sixfold increase from the $775 million recorded in the back half of 2025. The market cap for these on-chain equities reached $539 million by June, cementing Solana’s position as the dominant blockchain for a financial product category that barely existed 18 months ago.

The numbers behind Solana’s dominance The blockchain consistently accounts for more than 95% of cross-chain tokenized equity volume. During one week in mid-June, Solana processed $1.298 billion in tokenized stock trades, representing 95% of the global total for that period alone.

May 2026 was particularly notable. Cross-chain tokenized stock trading volume hit a record $5.3 billion that month, a 44% jump from April. And by June 23, Solana’s cumulative transfer volume for tokenized equities had crossed $10 billion.

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The chain’s structural advantages help explain why traders keep choosing it. Low transaction fees, high throughput, and a mature DeFi ecosystem make it the path of least resistance for platforms looking to bring traditional equities on-chain.

SpaceX shares lit the fuse The single biggest catalyst for this explosion in volume has a familiar name: SpaceX.

Following the company’s initial public offering, demand for tokenized SpaceX shares went vertical. During peak periods after the IPO, Solana captured up to 99% of related volume.

Tokenized stocks first emerged as a distinct digital asset class around mid-2025, offering on-chain access to both publicly traded equities and pre-IPO shares. Several platforms attempted tokenized securities on Ethereum years ago, but high gas fees and slow throughput limited adoption. Solana’s architecture solved both problems simultaneously.

What this means for investors A $539 million market cap for tokenized stocks is still a rounding error compared to the trillions sitting in conventional equity markets. But the growth rate is the signal, not the absolute number. Six-times growth in six months, if it continues at even a fraction of that pace, starts to represent meaningful market share.

Solana’s 95%-plus market share is extraordinary for any blockchain-based product category. What remains is regulatory clarity, which varies significantly by jurisdiction and remains the primary wildcard for the sector’s trajectory.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

The Kazakhstan Stock Exchange just became the first in Central Asia to list US-based cryptocurrency ETFs. On June 19, KASE admitted two digital asset funds under its KASE Global framework: the Volatility Shares Solana ETF (SOLZ_KZ) and BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA_KZ).

What’s actually being listed SOLZ_KZ, the Solana fund from Volatility Shares, does not hold SOL directly. Instead, it gains exposure through futures contracts listed on the CME, along with cash equivalents. The net expense ratio sits at 0.95%, set to hold through June 30, 2026. As of June 18, SOLZ_KZ had roughly $80 million in assets under management.

On the Ethereum side, ETHA_KZ is BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF, carrying a leaner management fee of 0.25%.

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Investment Company Standard JSC initiated the listing process for both products on KASE, acting as the bridge between US-based fund issuers and the Kazakh exchange infrastructure.

Kazakhstan’s crypto strategy has been building for a while In December 2025, KASE and the Solana Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on digital assets. That partnership directly facilitated KASE’s registration as Kazakhstan’s first digital asset platform operator, which became effective around mid-2026.

And even before KASE got into the game, the Astana International Exchange had already made waves. In September 2025, Fonte Capital launched what it described as the world’s first spot Solana ETF with staking on AIX. That product represented a different approach entirely, holding actual SOL tokens and generating staking yield, compared to the futures-based structure that SOLZ_KZ uses on KASE.

What this means for investors The immediate practical impact is straightforward: qualified investors in Kazakhstan can now gain exposure to Solana and Ethereum through their existing brokerage accounts on KASE. No need to set up a crypto wallet, manage private keys, or navigate the often-chaotic world of decentralized exchanges.

The fee structures also deserve attention. SOLZ_KZ’s 0.95% expense ratio is notably higher than ETHA_KZ’s 0.25%, reflecting the additional complexity and cost of managing a futures-based strategy. Futures-based funds can suffer from roll costs and tracking errors that eat into returns over time, a consideration that becomes more important the longer you hold.

For the Solana ecosystem specifically, having both a spot ETF with staking on AIX and a futures-based ETF on KASE operating in the same country represents a level of product diversity that most Western markets haven’t yet achieved. The $80 million in AUM for SOLZ_KZ is modest by US standards, but as a proof of concept for regulated crypto products in Central Asia, it’s the kind of number that tends to grow once institutional allocators see that the infrastructure actually works.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Solana Mobile’s dApp Store added 96 new applications in the span of a single week, pushing total listings to 1,561. The store had roughly 700 apps back in March 2026, climbed past 817 in April, crossed the 1,000 threshold in early June, and now sits at 1,561. That’s more than doubling its catalog in about three months.

Why developers keep showing up The Solana dApp Store charges developers a 0% platform fee. Zero. Not 15%, not 30%, not some convoluted tier system. Nothing. Compare that to Google’s 15-30% cut or Apple’s famously contentious 30% commission.

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The store operates as an Android distribution platform, meaning it runs alongside Google Play on Solana’s Seeker smartphone rather than replacing it entirely.

Solana Mobile has also introduced a feature called dApp Spotlight, a curated carousel surfacing quality applications for users. The platform has also introduced AI-driven tools for ratings and reviews.

The hardware equation Solana Mobile’s Seeker smartphone has now shipped more than 150,000 units. The Seeker includes hardware-level security features like the Seed Vault Wallet, which handles private key management and asset storage directly on the device.

The SKR token and ecosystem economics Solana Mobile launched the SKR token in January 2026 with a total supply of 10 billion tokens. The token serves multiple functions within the ecosystem, including governance, staking, and user incentives.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Ethereum, the world’s second-largest digital asset by market cap, continues to serve as a foundational platform for smart contracts and blockchain innovation. Developed by figures such as Vitalik Buterin and Consensys co-founder Joseph Lubin, Ethereum remains at the heart of groundbreaking advancements within the blockchain ecosystem.

Major technical upgrades aheadAs Ethereum holds its position as the main settlement layer for decentralized finance, NFT transactions, and tokenized assets, forthcoming protocol changes are being closely watched by both developers and institutional players. Most recently, Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin revealed that the network is just steps away from significant technical upgrades designed to enhance interoperability.

Joseph Lubin emphasized that advances in zero-knowledge proofs are being developed to enable faster and more secure communication between Ethereum’s Layer 1 and Layer 2 structures.

Among the highlighted technical themes is zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology, which allows information to be verified without revealing its content. This targeted approach aims to address longstanding security vulnerabilities present in traditional blockchain bridges, a subject of considerable debate in the industry.

Mini glossary: A zero-knowledge proof is a cryptographic method that allows someone to prove the validity of information without disclosing the information itself. Layer 2 refers to scaling solutions that process transactions off the main network and settle results on Ethereum.

Layer 2 interoperability strategy on the riseThis strategy closely aligns with Ethereum’s ongoing shift towards a rollup-centric approach, where an increasing portion of transactional load is handled by Layer 2 solutions. The network’s fragmented ecosystem structure has underscored the urgency of seamless interoperability between various components.

The report also highlighted the potential of a system called Interchain Token Movement, which could reduce reliance on risk-prone blockchain bridges. By improving connections between disparate ecosystems built around Ethereum, the initiative aims to form a more unified blockchain environment.

Potential effects for institutions and developersLower counterparty risk and faster settlement times are among the most notable benefits for institutional investors and DeFi protocols. For developers, enhanced toolkits could make it far easier to build robust multi-chain applications in practice.

Exchanges and custodial service providers may also see streamlined operational flows as a result. On the other hand, added complexity in transaction structures could lead to increased ETH burning, potentially altering the token’s circulating supply dynamics.

Competition intensifiesThese zero-knowledge-driven interoperability steps coincide with regulatory frameworks for digital assets becoming clearer and a surge in institutional interest. Still, rival networks such as Solana and projects adopting modular blockchain architectures are also pushing towards similar goals.

This evolving landscape has reignited debate about whether Ethereum can maintain its real-world interoperability advantage. The timing and effectiveness of the planned technical rollouts may prove decisive for Ethereum’s ecosystem competitiveness in the coming months.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Solana’s real-world asset ecosystem has crossed the $3.1 billion mark, a milestone that cements the network’s position as the third-largest blockchain for tokenized assets globally. The figure comes with over 290,000 wallets actively holding RWAs on the network.

Solana’s RWA market sat at roughly $873 million around the end of 2025. It has since more than tripled, with the most recent 30-day stretch alone delivering a 14.25% jump.

What’s driving the surge The $3.1 billion figure represents approximately 9.5% of the total tracked global RWA market. Solana now trails only Ethereum and BNB Chain in this rapidly expanding category, which encompasses everything from tokenized US Treasuries to equities and credit instruments.

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Tokenized stock trading on Solana recently hit an all-time high of $644 million in volume.

Allfunds, a major European wealth tech firm, has started offering tokenized funds directly on the Solana blockchain.

The total number of distinct RWAs on Solana has climbed to 687.

Why Solana, and why now Tokenized assets need fast, cheap transactions. Solana’s sub-second finality and near-zero transaction costs make it a natural fit for instruments that need to feel like traditional finance.

Projects like Ondo Finance, which has become one of the most prominent names in tokenized Treasuries, have expanded their presence on Solana.

What this means for investors The RWA growth represents a meaningful shift in the composition of value on the network. A blockchain that hosts $3.1 billion in tokenized real-world assets looks fundamentally different, from a risk perspective, than one primarily known for speculative token launches.

The risk side of the equation is worth watching too. If a significant portion of the $3.1 billion is concentrated in a small number of products or issuers, the ecosystem could be more fragile than the headline number suggests. The 687 distinct RWAs provide some comfort on diversification, but concentration risk at the issuer level is harder to assess from aggregate data alone.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

2026.06.14 10:47:19

On June 14, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings show the regulator has formally approved a rule change proposed by NYSE Arca that enables the listing and trading of the T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF. An actively managed cryptocurrency ETF, the fund will invest in a basket of digital assets meeting SEC-defined "eligible asset" criteria. While it uses a cryptocurrency index as its benchmark, it will not track that index passively. The filing notes the fund is projected to hold roughly 5 to 15 distinct cryptocurrencies, including major tokens like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX), Litecoin (LTC), Polkadot (DOT), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Chainlink (LINK). The SEC filing also reveals the fund may hold stablecoins—primarily USDC—as "tokenized cash" during normal operations to cover expenses and rebalance assets, though these will not count toward its core investment portfolio. The approval notice stresses the product must adhere to NYSE Arca’s rules around anti-manipulation, disclosure, liquidity, and risk management. It also requires the fund to have information barriers (often called "firewalls") and position transparency mechanisms in place to uphold market fairness and prevent insider trading. Analysts say this ETF’s approval further expands cryptocurrency’s footprint within the traditional financial sector, marking the arrival of actively managed multi-crypto ETFs as tradable products under mainstream regulatory oversight.

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Solana-based DePIN protocol Helium Mobile reached a new milestone in March 2026, recording $2.5 million in monthly revenue, its highest level to date, as reported in Syndica’s latest DePIN report. The decentralized wireless network, built on Solana, continues to shift toward a usage-driven model, with carrier offload and network utilization playing a larger role than new infrastructure deployment.

This latest performance places first-quarter 2026 revenue close to surpassing Helium Mobile’s entire mobile revenue for 2025, signaling an acceleration in real-world adoption and monetization.

Subscriber Growth and Product Expansion According to Blockworks data, Helium Mobile currently has almost 700,000 total sign-ups, gaining almost 100,000 sign-ups in the past two months, reflecting continued interest in its service model. Monthly subscriber additions also increased, rising to 14,000 in March from 12,000 in February.

The company introduced Helium Hangouts, a new in-app feature that allows subscribers to discover local venues with Helium connectivity.

This feature aims to deepen user engagement and reinforce the network’s real-world utility by connecting digital participation to physical locations.

At the same time, Helium’s broader usage metrics continue to expand. Daily offload reached 111 terabytes, while total subscribers stand above 3 million. Average daily data offload increased by 10%, and the number of daily offload users rose by 12% in March, indicating stronger engagement across the network.

Shift From Deployment to Utilization Helium’s growth strategy has increasingly emphasized network utilization over rapid infrastructure expansion. Monthly hotspot deployments remained in the low thousands, a sharp contrast to early 2025 levels that ranged between 27,000 and 30,000 per month.

Despite slower deployment, the existing network base of approximately 128,000 hotspots continues to support rising traffic volumes. Real-world usage has begun to validate this approach. Thousands of users connected through Helium infrastructure at the Okeechobee Music Festival, demonstrating the network’s ability to handle dense, high-demand environments.

This shift suggests that Helium has entered a phase where demand growth can be absorbed by existing infrastructure, improving capital efficiency while supporting higher throughput.

Revenue Composition and Carrier Offload As mentioned in Syndica’s March 2026 DePIN report, Helium Mobile’s revenue growth remained consistent throughout the first quarter. Monthly revenue rose 14% from $2.2 million in February to $2.5 million in March. This marks the third consecutive month that Helium Mobile has generated more than $2 million in revenue, a threshold first crossed in January 2026.

Carrier offload now represents the majority of Helium Mobile’s revenue. In March, offload-related fees accounted for 57% of total revenue, continuing a steady increase from near parity earlier in the year. Major United States carriers are routing larger volumes of traffic through Helium’s network, reinforcing its role as a complementary infrastructure layer within the telecom ecosystem.

This transition highlights a structural shift in Helium’s business model. While subscriber revenue remains important, enterprise demand from carrier partners increasingly drives overall income.

Solana DePIN Ecosystem Rebounds According to Syndica’s March 2026 DePIN report, The broader Solana DePIN sector also showed signs of recovery in March. Projects including Helium, Render, Hivemapper, UpRock, NATIX, XNET, and GEODNET collectively generated $2.9 million in revenue, representing a 16% increase from February.

At the same time, deployer rewards reversed a prolonged decline. Total rewards distributed across Solana DePIN protocols rose 31% to $2.1 million, up from February’s $1.6 million. Upcoming token generation events from projects such as Wingbits and Dabba may further increase incentives and network participation.

Wireless-focused protocols reached another milestone, delivering a combined 45,000 terabytes of offloaded data in March. This represents a 22% increase from February’s 37,000 terabytes and underscores rising demand for decentralized connectivity solutions.

Performance Across Key DePIN Projects Several projects within the ecosystem reported notable gains. Dabba Network recorded a 24% increase in usage, reaching 42,000 terabytes of data consumption. The project also signaled a transition toward on-chain infrastructure through a newly published roadmap.

XNET achieved 150 terabytes of offloaded data in March, a 40% increase from the previous month. It also introduced Passpoint, a feature that streamlines WiFi authentication by removing the need for captive portals. This development aims to reduce user friction and attract more venue operators.

Hivemapper delivered one of the strongest recoveries in the sector. Revenue rose from $9,000 in February to $75,000 in March, driven by renewed token burn activity and new product releases. Contributor participation increased 51% to 242, while total mapped distance grew 38% to 11 million kilometers.

Render Network nearly doubled its revenue to $176,000, supported by progress in integrating decentralized GPU infrastructure through a partnership proposal with Salad. Meanwhile, UpRock expanded its reach with the launch of OpenClaw DePIN and a global internet survey covering over 500,000 devices.

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