author & date of publication: Tomas | 3.10.2025
In a previous article, we explored the theoretical concept of Internet Capital Markets (ICM) – the vision of a global, efficient, and open financial system built on the blockchain. Now, we shift from theory to practice. This article will focus on concrete solutions and demonstrate why the Solana ecosystem is becoming a key laboratory and the current leader in realizing this vision. Our thesis, however, is not that the entire ICM concept will run exclusively on Solana. We are convinced that the final form will be a complex interplay of the entire crypto ecosystem, including Ethereum, Sui, and others. Nevertheless, it is currently Solana where we can observe the fastest and most concrete steps towards fulfilling this goal.
As articulated by Multicoin Capital in its “Solana Thesis“ for capital markets, Solana is the most effective single, unified, and high-performance state machine. This model, where all applications and assets share a single space, eliminates the risks, latency, and costs associated with bridging capital across different networks (L2s). For a financial system where instant settlement and zero counterparty risk are the holy grail, this monolithic architecture is a fundamental advantage. Solana is designed to scale with hardware in accordance with Moore’s Law, giving it a clear path to processing hundreds of thousands of transactions per second in the future without sacrificing its core advantage: atomic composability.
An analysis of on-chain data and key metrics shows that the Solana ecosystem is not just a candidate, but is currently emerging as the clear leader where this future is actively being built. The fundamental indicator of any economy’s health is activity. Data from July 2025 show that Solana had 103 million active addresses and processed 3.5 billion transactions. This is 26 times more active addresses and 76 times more transactions than Ethereum. This massive dominance in fundamental on-chain metrics demonstrates that Solana is where the vast majority of real user and economic activity is taking place. This activity directly translates into trading volumes, where Solana, with a monthly volume of $118 billion, dominates as the primary venue for on-chain trading.
One of Solana’s biggest paradoxes, and simultaneously one of its greatest strengths, is its economic model. For users, the network is extremely cheap – with a median transaction fee of $0.00122, it is approximately 150 times cheaper than Ethereum. Low and predictable fees remove barriers to mass adoption. At the same time, however, this model generates immense value for applications. Thanks to the massive transaction volume, applications built on Solana have generated $229 million in revenue in the last 30 days (as of time of writing this article), which is double that of applications on Ethereum. This “flywheel effect” – where low costs drive enormous volume, which in turn generates sustainable income for founders and application developers – is key to the long-term growth of a healthy ecosystem.
ICM is built on the ability to easily create and transfer any asset. Solana has become the de facto standard for this function. Each month, 1.8 million new tokens are being created on it, representing 60% of all new tokens created across the entire crypto ecosystem. This dominance applies not only to creation but also to the transfer of value. With 18 million monthly transfers, Solana is the leading platform for Circle’s USDC stablecoin. This makes it not only the largest factory for new digital assets but also the most frequented payment network for transferring stable value, which is a cornerstone of any financial system.
A key signal of the ecosystem’s maturation is the adoption by large, traditional players. Giants like Franklin Templeton (the first tokenized money market fund in the US), PayPal (native stablecoin), Visa (utilizing USDC on Solana for settlement), and BlackRock are already actively building on Solana. This institutional trust is a confirmation of the network’s robustness and readiness for serious financial operations.
Simultaneously, Solana is becoming the preferred platform for the future of autonomous economies. With a $3 billion market capitalization across 800 AI agents, it dominates in adoption by artificial intelligence, which requires exactly what Solana offers for its operations: extreme speed and low costs.
The ambitious vision of Internet Capital Markets (ICM) requires an infrastructure that not only functions today but also has a credible and transparent path to massive scalability in the future. Solana’s goal of achieving internet-scale performance, with a target approaching 1 million transactions per second (TPS), is not just a theoretical number. It is a structured, multi-year plan that includes both fundamental protocol upgrades and a growing ecosystem of independent engineering teams pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
Before looking to the future, it is important to ground ourselves in the present. Today, Solana is secured by over 1,000 validators worldwide. In real-world operation, the network is capable of stably processing 2,000 to 4,000 user TPS and serves as a robust foundation to build upon. The path to one million TPS is therefore an evolution, not a revolution from scratch.
Instead of a strict division into short- and mid-term goals, it is more accurate to view Solana’s roadmap as a set of several parallel and continuously ongoing initiatives that collectively push the network forward:
A key proof of the Solana ecosystem’s maturation is the transition from a software monoculture to a diversity of validator clients, which is crucial for network resilience and performance. This trend was kicked off by the arrival of the Firedancer client, which proved that independent teams could achieve an order-of-magnitude higher performance and thus break the dependency on the original codebase. This wave is being joined by other specialists, such as Raiku. They are developing a client focused on maximizing validator efficiency and profitability through advanced concepts like “decoupled block-building” and “pre-confirmations,” thereby creating a fairer and faster market for transaction space. The existence of several independent and competing development teams (Anza, Jito, Firedancer, Raiku) thus builds institutional trust and creates the antifragile foundation that is essential for global capital markets.
The following overview demonstrates how Solana’s theoretical advantages are manifesting in practice across the key categories of ICM. We will focus primarily on the latest trends and developments.
The DeFi ecosystem on Solana is exceptionally dynamic and is undergoing a maturation phase, moving from simple tools to sophisticated platforms comparable to traditional finance. DEXs are the core marketplaces of ICM, the venues for price discovery and asset exchange. While foundational AMMs like Orca and Raydium provided the initial liquidity that kickstarted the ecosystem, the current trend is toward higher capital efficiency. New, specialized AMMs like HumidiFi are emerging, designed for specific asset types where they minimize slippage and maximize returns for liquidity providers.
Derivatives, which are crucial for risk management and speculation in ICM, are developing rapidly on Solana in two layers. The foundation consists of primary exchanges like Drift Protocol with its on-chain order book, supplemented by platforms like Jupiter Perps, Flash Trade, and Adrena. The efficiency of the entire market is then enhanced by aggregators like Ranger Finance, which search all these exchanges to find the best price for traders.
Lending protocols form the credit backbone of ICM, allowing any asset to be used productively as collateral to obtain liquidity. Kamino plays a central role here, having evolved into a comprehensive platform for lending, leverage, and automated strategies. Crucially for the ICM vision, Kamino allows a wide range of assets to be used as collateral, including LSTs and even tokenized stocks. This space is further strengthened by the newly launched JupLend, which deepens the available liquidity for borrowing. The sector is also being expanded by Project 0 from Marginfi, which functions as a “DeFi-native prime brokerage” layer. Its goal is to unify a user’s capital held across various protocols into a single portfolio, allowing for borrowing against the total asset value and the execution of complex, multi-protocol strategies to increase capital efficiency.
Vaults represent automated investment strategies that provide access to complex financial operations previously available only to hedge funds. Projects like DeFi Carrot, Neutral Trade, Lince, and Vectis focus on maximizing variable yield through advanced tactics such as delta-neutral farming or leveraged positions. Furthermore, this sector is expanding with a new generation of platforms like RateX and Exponent, which allow for the tokenization of future yield, thereby creating markets for fixed interest rates for professional interest rate risk management.
LSTs are one of DeFi’s most important innovations. Their role in ICM is to unlock the value of staked capital. Instead of capital being locked up merely to secure the network, LSTs transform it into a liquid, interest-bearing asset that serves as premium collateral across the entire lending and derivatives ecosystem. Dozens of LSTs from projects like Marinade and Jito exist on Solana.
Restaking is the new frontier of capital efficiency, allowing the same staked capital to provide “shared economic security” to multiple protocols at once. Although this sector is in its early stages on Solana, projects like the multi-chain Renzo and the native Fragmetric or Glow Finance are already building the foundations for this new layer, which promises further optimization of capital utilization within ICM.
DEX Aggregators like the dominant Jupiter, as well as 1inch and Titan, unify fragmented liquidity and guarantee the best price, which is crucial for an efficient market. It is telling that most RWAs, such as tokenized stocks, are traded by retail investors precisely through Jupiter.
Launchpads are the primary market of ICM, where new assets are created and distributed. A fascinating spectrum has formed in this area on Solana, covering both ends of the market. On one end are the ultra-fast, permissionless, and socially-viral platforms. Projects like Pump.Fun, Believe, Moonshot, and LetsBonk.fun are a perfect demonstration of the “user-generated assets” thesis, allowing anyone to create and launch a new token within minutes and at minimal cost. On the complete opposite, professional end of the spectrum, are platforms like Gavel. This type of launchpad is designed for serious and vetted projects that require fair distribution and maximum security.
While DeFi is the engine, Real-World Assets (RWA) are the fuel that has the potential to power ICM and bring trillions of dollars of value onto the blockchain. Thanks to its speed and low costs, Solana is becoming the preferred platform for RWA, evidenced by the explosive growth of projects in this area.
The most mature and widespread category today is undoubtedly tokenized US Treasuries, which serve as the “on-chain risk-free rate”. This market includes traditional finance giants like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, as well as crypto-native firms like Ondo Finance, which make these products accessible to on-chain investors. This foundation of safe assets is logically followed by the tokenization of institutional funds, where large investment firms like Hamilton Lane and Apollo, often in collaboration with platforms like Securitize, are beginning to offer shares in their exclusive funds directly on the blockchain. This market is also complemented by the global bonds sector, which focuses on the debt of countries other than the US. Although this market is in an earlier phase, a pioneer here is the Etherfuse project. It specializes in tokenizing government bonds from strong, emerging economies, primarily in Latin America, with their flagship product being tokenized Mexican government bonds (CETES).
Alongside investments in funds and bonds, the private credit sector is experiencing enormous growth. Platforms like Maple Finance, Centrifuge, and Huma Finance are creating on-chain markets where DeFi investors can provide capital to real-world businesses and earn a sustainable yield based on real economic activity.
Perhaps the most ambitious and anticipated area of RWA is on-chain equities, which promises the creation of a global, 24/7, and transparent market. This sector is developing in several directions. In the realm of public stocks, we see several innovative approaches. The Opening Bell project by Superstate represents a fundamental, “infrastructure-first” approach; while it starts with tokenizing a fund of US Treasuries, its main goal is to build a regulated and scalable framework that will, in the future, enable the tokenization of all public securities, including stocks. In contrast, platforms like xStocks utilize a more classic DeFi model, allowing the creation of synthetic tokens that track the price of real stocks using on-chain collateral and oracles. RWA leaders like Ondo Finance are building their Ondo Global Markets platform with the aim of becoming a comprehensive and regulated “on-chain brokerage” service for a wide range of public securities. Projects like Remora are exploring other unique mechanisms to bring exposure to stocks into the on-chain world.
An equally interesting market is also opening up for private assets, which democratizes access to venture capital investments. Platforms like preStocks, Earlybird, and Raizer.fi are focused on creating markets for company shares even before their IPO. A similar goal is pursued by Mirror Tokens from Republic, which offer regulated, synthetic exposure to the largest private companies like SpaceX in the form of tokenized debt instruments. An absolute breakthrough and a true bridge between the old and new financial worlds is the partnership between the aggregator Jupiter and the Astana Exchange. Their goal is a “dual listing” – a state where tokenized securities will be tradable on both a traditional exchange and a decentralized platform like Jupiter.
As the ICM ecosystem matures, the spectrum of tokenized assets is expanding beyond traditional securities. In real estate, a leader in popularizing the concept is Parcl, which creates synthetic markets for real estate price indexes. A more traditional approach in the form of fractional ownership of specific buildings is taken by Homebase and Metawealth, while RECC Finance focuses on crowdfunding for new development projects. A similar principle of fractionalization is applied to physical goods, where projects like Baxus (rare whiskey) and Collector and Dvin Labs (luxury watches and wines) tokenize high-value collectibles. This sector is also complemented by the Collaterize platform, which specializes in transforming these real assets into liquid on-chain assets. The ecosystem is also expanding to include commodities, where Oro tokenizes precious metals, AgriDex is building a market for agricultural products, and Uranium Digital allows investors to gain exposure to uranium.
Alongside the tokenization of real assets, a risk management layer is essential for a healthy and trustworthy market. This role within ICM is fulfilled by the insurance sector, where the OnRe project operates on Solana. It positions itself as the world’s first on-chain reinsurer and connects traditional insurance markets with DeFi infrastructure. It allows institutional on-chain capital to invest in real reinsurance risk, thereby creating an entirely new asset class and yield opportunity for DeFi investors that is not directly correlated with crypto market volatility.
Payments and stablecoins represent the lifeblood of ICM. Without an efficient, cheap, and reliable way to move value, the entire system could not function. This category ensures both the connection to the traditional financial world and the seamless flow of capital within the on-chain ecosystem. The first and most important step is entering this world, which is provided by On/Off Ramps. These are the necessary bridges that allow users to easily exchange traditional currencies for digital assets. This key service is provided by both centralized players like Moonpay and global financial giants like Stripe, who are increasingly integrating crypto payments into their products.
Once capital enters the on-chain world, it is converted into its most important asset: stablecoins. This market consists of several key categories. The dominant type is fiat-backed stablecoins, which function as digital cash; this includes market leaders USDC from Circle and USDT from Tether, which make up almost 90% of the supply on Solana. This group was recently joined by the institutionally-focused PYUSD from PayPal, which innovates by using Solana’s token extensions, as well as regulated alternatives like FDUSD. The second category is decentralized, crypto-collateralized stablecoins, backed by a basket of volatile assets. The main representative here is USDS from the Sky protocol, which represents the most important decentralized alternative. The last, most innovative group consists of algorithmic and synthetic stablecoins, such as USDe from Ethena, which maintains its value through a delta-neutral strategy. This innovative wave also includes new interest-bearing stablecoins like sUSD from Solayer and USDY from Ondo Finance, which are the first to pass the interest from the underlying bonds directly to the token holder. It also includes special-purpose stablecoins like MoveUSD for cross-border payments and PST, the native stablecoin for the Huma Finance “PayFi” network, as well as “meta-stablecoins” like *USD from Perena, which is backed by a basket of other stablecoins.
The mere existence of stable assets would not be enough without a robust payment infrastructure for their practical use. In this area, the Solana Pay protocol has become the standard on Solana, enabling instant and nearly free settlement of payments for merchants, upon which platforms like Helio build. While these services focus on end-consumer payments, sophisticated B2B solutions are also emerging. Huma Finance allows companies to tokenize their future revenues, such as receivables or invoices, and use them as collateral to instantly obtain working capital from on-chain liquidity pools. Entirely new possibilities are also being opened by Zebec Network, whose payment streaming protocol replaces the paradigm of one-time transactions with a continuous flow of value. In practice, this allows for things like paying salaries by the second or executing complex vesting plans, functions that traditional banking does not support.
Asset Management is the category of tools and services that allow users to securely hold, manage, and interact with these assets. This layer is absolutely crucial as it forms the gateway to the entire ICM ecosystem for both retail investors and large institutions. For most individuals, the primary interface is wallets. In daily interaction with DeFi, software “hot” wallets like Phantom, Solflare, Backpack, and Nightly dominate, having evolved from simple tools into comprehensive portals with integrated trading and NFT management. For maximum security and long-term holding, hardware “cold” wallets like Ledger and Trezor are used, which store private keys in an offline environment.
For institutions, funds, and large corporations, however, direct management of private keys is often an unacceptable risk. This is where custody platforms come in, providing professional, insured, and regulated custody of digital assets. Platforms like Fireblocks and ForDeFi offer a suite of tools that includes not only secure storage but also advanced mechanisms like multi-signature and the definition of user roles, which is an essential prerequisite for the entry of large institutional capital into ICM. On the border between these two worlds, innovative protocols like Glam Systems are emerging, building programmable investment infrastructure directly on Solana. It allows asset managers and DAOs to create sophisticated on-chain “vaults” with detailed rules and permissions, and then transform them into investable products, effectively creating an “operating system” for a new generation of on-chain hedge funds and ETFs.
Infrastructure is the invisible but absolutely essential foundation upon which the entire ICM ecosystem is built. While some of its parts, such as Scaling and Clients & Nodes, have already been touched upon in the roadmap chapter, other key areas deserve attention. The Developer Tools sector is a great example, where the Metaplex protocol with its Genesis product provides a comprehensive suite of on-chain tools for the issuance and distribution of any token, thereby standardizing and simplifying the process of creating new assets for ICM.
To fulfill the vision of a global, multi-chain market, interoperability is key, ensuring the secure transfer of assets and data between different blockchains. Leaders in this field are protocols like Wormhole, LayerZero, and deBridge, which form bridges connecting Solana with EVM networks and others, thus building the nervous system of a future interconnected financial world. Equally indispensable are oracles, which supply the blockchain with key external data. In the context of institutional adoption, Chainlink plays a crucial role here, having recently focused intensively on connecting capital markets and supporting RWA through collaborations with global financial giants like SWIFT or DTCC.
With the connection of the real and on-chain worlds, the need for decentralized identity also grows, forming the trust layer necessary to meet regulatory requirements. Projects like Civic, SolanaID, SNS for simplifying addresses, and Reclaim Protocol for transferring Web2 reputation allow users to prove their identity without sacrificing their privacy. Hand in hand with this goes the management of decentralized organizations, for which DAO Tools are emerging. The Realms platform provides a complete suite of tools for founding and managing DAOs on Solana, while MetaDAO is exploring entirely new, more efficient models of collective decision-making.
Finally, a key condition for the entry of large institutional players is privacy. This challenge is being addressed by the Arcium project, which is building a decentralized network for confidential computing. Arcium functions as a “co-processor” for blockchains like Solana, where it allows sensitive parts of transactions to be executed in an encrypted, off-chain environment, with only a verifiable proof of their correct execution being recorded on the main blockchain. For ICM, this means the ability to conduct private trades or operate “dark pools” without sacrificing the security and verifiability of the blockchain, which is absolutely essential for institutional finance.
For ICM to transition from a theoretical concept to a globally adopted financial system, collaboration with regulators and ensuring compliance is absolutely essential. This category represents not just another set of tools, but a fundamental layer that builds trust, protects users, and allows institutional capital to safely enter the on-chain world. This process has two main aspects: proactive dialogue with policymakers and practical tools for rule enforcement.
An example of the proactive approach is Project Open, an initiative led by the Solana Policy Institute. Their proposal for a pilot program for tokenizing stocks on public blockchains like Solana aims to show how the transparency and instant settlement of the blockchain can actually meet and even enhance the goals of regulators – that is, to create more efficient and safer markets.
The second, practical aspect is RegTech solutions, which allow projects and institutions to operate in accordance with the rules. These tools analyze public blockchain data to help identify and mitigate risks. Leaders in this field are firms like Chainalysis and Elliptic, whose platforms monitor transactions in real time and screen wallets to detect connections to illicit activities (AML) and sanctioned entities. The ecosystem is also supplemented by more specialized tools like Netrunner, which focuses on the key area of tax obligations and simplifies reporting for users and companies on Solana.
Solana’s leading position in the development of Internet Capital Markets is not the result of a single attribute, but rather the outcome of a powerful combination of four key pillars. The first is its unique architecture, where everything operates in a single, interconnected space, which guarantees maximum efficiency and security. The second is hard data, which demonstrates its current dominance in transaction counts, active users, and the creation of new assets. The third is an ambitious yet transparent roadmap for future development aimed at massive scalability. However, the most crucial is the fourth pillar: a vibrant and growing ecosystem of real-world projects that are turning this vision into practice every day.
Although the final form of this system will undoubtedly be multi-chain, Solana currently serves as the key laboratory. The innovations emerging here are becoming the model and standard for what the future of the on-chain economy could look like.
Disclaimer: The Solana Internet Capital Markets Map is not comprehensive. This material is for purely educational purposes and should not be considered financial advice.