The key insight is that to outcompete NASDAQ, blockchain exchanges must offer better prices than traditional markets, which means achieving tighter bid-ask spreads. This requires solving fundamental market microstructure problems that other blockchains can't address. Solana's unique parallel processing architecture, combined with upcoming consensus improvements, provides the only viable path to institutional-grade trading infrastructure.

The market microstructure challenge that determines everything

The fundamental measure of exchange quality is spread—the difference between the highest bid and lowest ask. Tighter spreads mean better prices for traders and more efficient markets. Understanding why spreads exist reveals the core challenge facing all blockchain exchanges: market makers must win the "cancel race" when prices move.

When market information changes, market makers race to cancel stale orders before informed traders can pick them off. On centralized exchanges, market makers win this cancel race only 13% of the time. On the current Solana infrastructure, they win even less frequently due to MEV auction dynamics. This forces market makers to widen spreads to compensate for losses, making markets less efficient.

The current single-leader model with Jito MEV auctions creates a fundamental disadvantage for market makers. Even if they're faster, what matters is who pays the highest bid in the auction. This puts market makers in an impossible position: pay expensive MEV fees to cancel orders or let traders snipe them with expensive MEV fees. Either way, these costs get passed to users through wider spreads.

Solana's upcoming multiple concurrent leaders upgrade will implement "cancels before takes" ordering policies, giving market makers the advantage they need to provide tighter spreads. This architectural improvement is impossible on other blockchains due to their sequential processing constraints.

Why Solana's architecture makes other CLOB chains obsolete

The fundamental difference lies in how Solana processes transactions. While other blockchains process trades sequentially, Solana's Sealevel runtime executes thousands of smart contracts simultaneously across all available cores. This means multiple trading pairs can process orders, settlements, and risk calculations simultaneously without competing for computational resources.

For CLOB implementations, this translates to real-time order matching across entire markets rather than queue-based processing. When Bullet Protocol targets 2ms transaction latency compared to Hyperliquid's 200ms, it's not just an incremental improvement—it's accessing computational capabilities that don't exist on sequential blockchains. The upcoming Firedancer upgrade promises to push throughput to over 1 million TPS, enabling a trading infrastructure that surpasses even centralized exchanges.

Bullet rollup: Engineering the future of on-chain trading

Bullet Protocol represents the evolution of sophisticated CLOB infrastructure on Solana. Built by the team behind Zeta Markets, Bullet combines Zero-Knowledge fraud proofs with Solana's parallel execution to create a specialized rollup optimized for derivatives trading. With $13.5 million in funding and a testnet already live, Bullet is engineering towards their target of 2ms latency, demonstrating how Solana enables institutional-grade performance development while maintaining full decentralization.

The key innovation is architectural: rather than fragmenting liquidity like Ethereum L2s, Bullet operates as an application-specific execution environment that maintains composability with Solana's broader DeFi ecosystem. Users can trade derivatives on Bullet's optimized infrastructure while their collateral remains accessible to lending protocols, yield strategies, and other DeFi applications—a level of capital efficiency impossible on isolated trading chains.

The $ZEX token's recent 152% surge reflects market recognition of this technical roadmap. As institutions demand the performance of centralized exchanges with the transparency of blockchain infrastructure, solutions like Bullet that are building towards these capabilities represent the clear evolutionary path forward.

Phoenix and OpenBook: The infrastructure layer advantage

Solana's CLOB ecosystem demonstrates sophisticated specialization that competitors cannot match. Phoenix focuses on institutional features with its "crankless" architecture that eliminates operational overhead, while OpenBook operates as a community-controlled infrastructure serving the entire ecosystem.

Phoenix's elimination of the traditional cranking mechanism means trades settle instantly without external intervention, removing key barriers to institutional adoption while maintaining transparent price discovery. Market makers can update positions every second at approximately $20 per day in transaction costs—economics that enable professional-grade liquidity provision impossible on higher-fee chains.

OpenBook's role as unmonetized public infrastructure creates network effects that benefit the entire ecosystem. Major protocols like Raydium and Jupiter route liquidity through OpenBook's order books, while maintaining their own specialized interfaces. This composable approach means Solana CLOBs don't compete for liquidity—they can share and amplify it across the ecosystem.

The Hyperliquid comparison reveals fundamental limitations

Hyperliquid's success in capturing 60-70% of global perpetual trading volume demonstrates market demand for high-performance CLOB infrastructure. However, Hyperliquid's specialized blockchain approach cannot solve the fundamental market microstructure problems that determine exchange quality. Even with impressive volumes, Hyperliquid still operates with single-leader consensus that gives informed traders advantages over market makers.

Solana's roadmap to multiple concurrent leaders with application-controlled ordering represents the only viable solution to the cancel race problem. While Hyperliquid optimizes for speed within existing consensus constraints, Solana is redesigning consensus itself to give market makers the tools they need to provide institutional-grade spreads.

The composability advantage compounds this technical superiority. While Hyperliquid traders must bridge assets and operate in isolation, Solana CLOB users can simultaneously participate in lending markets, yield farming, and derivatives trading with the same capital. As institutional adoption requires capital efficiency across integrated financial services, specialized trading chains face fundamental architectural limitations.

Institutional validation accelerating

Major financial institutions are choosing Solana for regulated products, validating its infrastructure for institutional trading. Franklin Templeton's $594 million money market fund deployment and BlackRock's USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund create direct pathways for traditional finance capital to access Solana's trading infrastructure.

When trillion-dollar asset managers choose Solana over Ethereum for regulated financial products, they're validating not just the technology but the infrastructure's institutional readiness. These deployments create the foundation for sophisticated trading strategies that require the performance and composability only Solana provides.

The inevitable infrastructure migration

The convergence of institutional adoption, technical superiority, and ecosystem maturation makes Solana's emergence as the primary CLOB infrastructure inevitable. Traditional finance won't migrate to blockchain infrastructure that performs worse than existing systems—it will migrate to infrastructure that's dramatically superior.

Solana's CLOBs provide institutional-grade performance with full transparency and composability. As the tokenized asset market scales toward projected $18.9 trillion by 2033, the blockchain infrastructure capable of handling institutional transaction volumes while maintaining DeFi composability will capture the majority of professional trading activity.

Conclusion: Engineering the decentralized NASDAQ

The CLOB Wars on Solana represent more than competitive dynamics—they demonstrate how to engineer financial infrastructure that can actually outcompete traditional exchanges. Solana's honest assessment of current limitations, combined with concrete solutions for market microstructure problems, positions it as the only blockchain capable of hosting institutional-grade trading infrastructure.

The upcoming multiple concurrent leaders upgrade, combined with protocols like Bullet rollup's development roadmap, creates a pathway to spreads that beat centralized exchanges. While competitors optimize within existing constraints, Solana is rebuilding consensus itself to solve the fundamental problems that determine exchange quality.

Solana isn't just building better CLOBs—it's engineering the decentralized NASDAQ from first principles. As institutional adoption accelerates and market microstructure improvements deploy, Solana's combination of technical innovation and ecosystem composability will capture the infrastructure that powers tomorrow's financial markets.

Ok, entonces en cada evento cripto al que asisto y en muchas conversaciones en línea con algunas de mis personas de crypto web3, ciertos pequeños mitos y ataques siempre siguen esta pregunta. En este breve artículo, responderé por qué me gusta Solana y por qué sigo aquí, construyendo mi negocio después de todos sus altibajos.

Podría mantener este ensayo centrado principalmente en los KPI que comparan a Solana con Ethereum y todos los demás L2 combinados o pasar la mayor parte de mi tiempo desacreditando todos los mitos que rodean la cadena hasta la fecha debido a la desinformación y la mala fe. En cambio, repasaré brevemente y, justo después, me referiré a mis puntos de vista personales sobre por qué puse todos mis huevos en la canasta de Solana y por qué creo firmemente que es el mejor lugar para mí y para mi empresa. Ah, sí, y también me acercaré a la charla sobre meme coin.

Por favor, lea este ensayo con una pizca de sal, ya que soy parcial, teniendo en cuenta que literalmente salté al ecosistema de Solana el año pasado después de dejar mi trabajo de startup en Nueva York y regresar a Brasil para poder concentrarme únicamente en construir Hexis, pero este es un tema para otro ensayo.

Los números no mienten:

Entonces, hablemos brevemente de números: desde alrededor de septiembre de 2024, hemos visto una tendencia alcista en todos los principales KPI que a los analistas de blockchain les gusta ver y hablar.

• Desarrolladores que se basan en Solana = Superaron a Ethereum y a todos los L2

• Direcciones activas diarias = más altas que todas las demás cadenas principales combinadas.

• Protocolo + Comisiones de Cadena (Ingresos) = Absurdamente alto

• Volumen de operaciones = No hay necesidad de hablar

• La cadena que el presidente de los Estados Unidos elige para lanzar su token

Esta lista sigue y sigue y sigue... Si no me crees, puedes verificar las métricas utilizando cualquier fuente creíble...

https://dune.com/Henrystats/ethereum-vs-solana

https://defillama.com/compare?chains=Solana&chains=Ethereum&chainFees=true

https://tokenterminal.com/explorer/projects/solana

Sí, en TVL, Solana todavía está (muy) detrás de Ethereum, pero tengo la fuerte sensación de que esto podría cambiar en los próximos años. El juego ha cambiado, y Solana está trabajando duro para demostrar su valía y atraer a los grandes con dinero real. Tenemos las regulaciones en los EE. UU. que abren la puerta a un ETF de Solana, tenemos grandes empresas que comienzan a construir sobre Solana y, más que eso, tenemos un gran esfuerzo de la Fundación Solana (que hasta el mes pasado fue mi principal crítica) tratando de mantenerse por delante de todas las regulaciones. Una vez que comencemos a ver la incorporación institucional masiva, será solo cuestión de tiempo, y esto ya ha comenzado.

Solana ETF:

Un buen ejemplo de esto es Black Rock haciendo movimientos:

La Fundación Solana avanza en el juego de la regulación con el lanzamiento del Solana Policy Institute:

Con todo eso fuera del camino, solo necesito matar algunos mitos antes de que podamos continuar con mi visión personal de por qué elegí Solana.

Cada vez que hablamos de Solana, siempre hay algunos fantasmas del pasado (o alguna porquería de ese estilo) que vuelve a atormentarnos, así que abordémoslos.

^1er mito: interrupciones:

¡Solana se cae mucho! ¿Cómo se puede confiar en una cadena que la "fundación" puede reiniciar con el clic de un botón?

Bueno, este en realidad se compone de dos mitos: Solana no se cae todo el tiempo. En realidad, la última vez que tuvimos un incidente fue en febrero de 2024, pero como todos necesitan odiar a Solana, ¡les gusta gritar eso! Por otro lado, Solana es una de las pocas cadenas que se ocupa de situaciones como esta publicamente y de buena manera. No es que otras cadenas nunca hayan caído, es solo que no hablan de ello ni comparten datos sobre el incidente.

Un pequeño artículo que aborda esto es: https://jp12.medium.com/l1-outage-list-c89a1d167d0a

Por otro lado, Solana mantiene actualizado este panel de control, que contiene todos los datos históricos sobre incidentes, así que vaya allí y compruébelo usted mismo. (https://status.solana.com/uptime?page=1)

El segundo aspecto de este mito es que la Fundación Solana de alguna manera podría reiniciar la red por sí misma, pero en realidad, para reiniciar la cadena, se necesita que el 80% o más de los validadores estén de acuerdo y tomen medidas. Manejan esto juntos a través de un servidor de Discord.

^2º Mito: Centralización

Con eso viene el mito de la centralización. La gente siempre me lanza eso como si tuvieran un "arma secreta", pero en realidad, es solo un argumento realmente malo (si lo consideras un argumento en absoluto).

Este mito nació debido a lo caro que es ejecutar su propio nodo Solana (alrededor de $ 1200/mes en los principales proveedores de la nube), pero por alguna razón, la gente todavía piensa que estamos en 2020... Hoy en día, Solana cuenta con más de 1300 validadores en todo el mundo (puedes consultarlos aquí: https://www.validators.app/validators?locale=en&network=mainnet)

El coeficiente de Nakamoto de Solana de hoy es de alrededor de 20, un número muy bueno en comparación con todas las demás cadenas, pero hemos sido más altos, ¡y creo que volveremos allí! Para tener una comparación, Cosmos tiene una puntuación de 7, Avalanche una puntuación de 25 y Polygon una puntuación de 4. Sí, Solana no está tan centralizada como te dijo eth maxi.

"En pocas palabras: cuanto mayor sea el coeficiente de Nakamoto en una red, más resistente será la red a los tipos de ataques. Y cuanto más resistente es la red a los tipos de ataques, más descentralizada y resistente a la censura es." Comprueba el coeficiente de Nakamoto

aquí: https://nakaflow.io\

³ mito: nada más que Memecoins

El tercer mito es que no hay dAPPS en Solana y que la cadena solo existe debido a las meme coins (algo que muchos consideran cáncer, pero lo considero al contrario... este es un tema propio para un día más tarde), pero esto es una mentira. La "temporada de súper memes" de Solana comenzó hace algunos meses (alrededor de enero de 2024, pero tardó un tiempo en ganar fuerza), y al igual que Ethereum, BSC y Arbitrum aumentaron mucho su volumen durante su temporada de meme-coin, Solana tuvo lo mismo, pero con esteroides, ya que Solana ofrece una UI/UX simple y directa.

Las personas que usan este argumento generalmente siguen hablando de PumpFun, y sí, estoy totalmente de acuerdo en que PF aportó mucho volumen a la cadena al resolver un problema importante (y crear algunos otros), pero Solana NO es PumpFun.

Entonces, veamos cómo era Solana antes de PF:

• Aquí podemos ver que la tendencia alcista en TVL (en SOL) comenzó a finales de 2023 y no en 2024.

Además de eso, Solana siempre ha tenido una gran comunidad, y muchas dAPPs hoy en día las aplicaciones más utilizadas son las plataformas DeFi. Por ejemplo, Kamino (el AAVE de Solana con esteroides) ganó 7 millones en tarifas en el último mes (que muchos consideran un mal mes ya que murieron los "memecoins").

Creo que Solana es la cadena que más esfuerzo pone en los hackatones. La fundación, junto con muchos inversores, promueve varios hackatones cada año para ayudar a incubar grandes equipos y proyectos nuevos. Ten en cuenta que la mayoría de las grandes dAPPs de hoy en día provienen de allí... ¡así que parece que está funcionando!

Puedes consultar los hackatones de solanas aquí

Y, de hecho, ¡están comenzando uno nuevo!

Hoy en día, la cadena cuenta con más de 200 protocolos activos, muchos de los cuales se encuentran entre los 100 mejores de todos los protocolos desde la perspectiva de la generación de tarifas o de los usuarios activos diarios. Sí, no es tanto como Polygon con sus 600 protocolos, pero todos los EVM tienen una enorme cantidad de protocolos debido a la facilidad de lanzar un fork o una copia, ya que todos están basados en Solidity, mientras que en Solana, los desarrolladores de Chad deben conocer Rust para construir programas realmente buenos.

No voy a dedicarle más tiempo, pero puedes consultar los números aquí: https://defillama.com/chains

Ahora que quité todo eso del camino, hablemos de Por qué Solana es el lugar para estar.

Ahora que he quitado todo eso del camino, hablemos de Por qué Solana es el lugar para estar.

¿Por qué Solana?

Para explicar por qué amo a Solana, debo explicar cómo terminé aquí. Todo comenzó en 2021, me había graduado recientemente de la universidad (Clase de 2020), y aunque desde 2018 más o menos, ya había negociado algunos tokens, nunca antes había utilizado ninguna de las cadenas, era puro trading especulativo. En 2021, esto cambió cuando aprendí más sobre DeFi y cómo podría ganar una buena cantidad adicional de dinero con el yield farming.

Una vez que empecé a jugar con los primeros proyectos de DeFi, me enamoré y comencé a estudiar todos los protocolos que me gustaban profundamente. Recuerdo tener un cuaderno donde escribía todo sobre el protocolo que estaba estudiando. No los recuerdo todos, pero algunos nombres que me vinieron a la mente de entonces eran Francium (¡este era uno de los mejores!), Larix, Tulip, Cropper y tantos otros... Algunos todavía están alrededor y son más fuertes que nunca, como Raydium, Orca y Lifinity. (Y tantos otros que no recuerdo ahora mismo ofc)

A mediados de 2022, la temporada de NFT se disparó, y fue la primera vez que conocí a brasileños en Solana. Debido a que solo consumía contenido directamente de los protocolos y algunos Kol estadounidenses, nunca antes había interactuado con brasileños en WEB3, y fue una gran experiencia. Ayudé en la construcción de CookinDAO, que se convirtió durante un tiempo en el DAO brasileño más grande enfocado únicamente en Solana - Solana era LA COSA en Brasil y en muchos otros países del tercer mundo porque, por primera vez, teníamos una cadena súper rápida que era tan barata que cualquiera podía usarla y construir sobre ella. En CookinDAO, hice amigos y construí una nueva familia, unida no por sangre sino por la cadena Solana. Hasta la fecha, soy miembro activo de CookinDAO y de muchas otras increíbles comunidades brasileñas que ayudan a incorporar a los recién llegados a WEB3.

En CookinDAO, también conocí a mi actual socio comercial, Rafael Ribas, quien, en mi humilde opinion, es una de las personas más inteligentes y competentes cuando se habla de tecnología y desarrollo en Solana. En 2023, notamos una tendencia alcista en el volumen de operaciones, y como no queríamos perder el tren, desarrollamos un software de operaciones que nos ayudaría con diferentes estrategias de operaciones automatizadas. Lo monetizamos y este software nos ayudó a potenciar lo que Hexis Labs es hoy: una firma de investigación y desarrollo centrada en Solana con un fuerte brazo educativo para ayudar a incubar a los mejores constructores del mañana.

Entonces, para mí, la respuesta a "Por qué Solana" va más allá de los sentimientos:

• La tecnología realmente funciona: los números que compartí anteriormente no mienten: costos increíblemente bajos (como fracciones de un centavo) + velocidades increíbles (65k+TPS) + el crecimiento exponencial con IBRL. Cuando intentas crear algo que no rompa el banco para los usuarios, ¡literalmente no hay nada más que se acerque!

• Los desarrolladores de Chad están AQUÍ: de alguna manera hemos superado a Ethereum en desarrolladores activos a pesar de necesitar conocer a Rust (¡lo cual no es fácil!). Tampoco se trata solo de desarrolladores aleatorios: estos son los que están dispuestos a aprender idiomas más difíciles porque saben que la tecnología vale la pena.

• Realmente está siendo utilizado: ¿Recuerdas esas métricas de las que hablé? Liderando TODAS las cadenas en direcciones activas diarias no es solo una métrica de vanidad, ¡significa que personas reales están USANDO esto! Agreguen las tarifas de protocolo masivas y los jugadores institucionales que husmean, y es obvio que esto no es solo una exageración.

• Sin cultura BS: ¿Dónde más verías al fundador y presidente del proyecto debatir abiertamente algo como SIMD-228 en lados opuestos? En serio, ¡trata de imaginar eso en cualquier otro ecosistema! Este lugar valora el debate real por sobre el consenso sin sentido. Como dijo Toly, "El acero afila el acero". (https://x.com/aeyakovenko/status/1897853895453688208)

• Cualquiera puede construir aquí: ¿de qué otra manera podríamos Rafael y yo, dos tipos de Brasil, iniciar un negocio exitoso en la cadena con un capital mínimo? La combinación de tarifas prácticamente nulas y un rendimiento increible significa que los constructores de CUALQUIER LUGAR pueden participar y crear.

Mi viaje personal desde el intercambio de tokens hasta la construcción de Hexis Labs es básicamente la historia de Solana en el microcosmos, desde "tal vez esto funcione" hasta "mierda, esto FUNCIONA".

Y definitivamente no estoy solo aquí. Habla con cualquier fundador construyendo en el ecosistema y escucharás lo mismo:

Solana es diferente, Solana es el hogar.

Este ensayo y muchos otros son parte de él, ya que queremos traer temas técnicos difíciles a varios idiomas de manera fácil y sencilla y hablar sobre el ecosistema de Solana. Así que espera de nosotros artículos como estos, inmersiones profundas en proyectos y equipos, contenido educativo para constructores e investigación técnica profunda sobre la tecnología y la infraestructura de Solana.

Estamos aquí para ayudar a Solana a crecer y convertirse en un lugar mejor. Lo lograremos desarrollando tecnología, ayudando a otros equipos y evangelizando a Solana a través de artículos y contenido digital.

As decentralized projects expand across multiple blockchains, traditional single-chain DAO governance faces new challenges. Communities and token holders are increasingly scattered on different networks, which fragments participation and makes governance less inclusive.

Wormhole’s Multi-Governance (MultiGov) model addresses this by enabling a multichain governance system – one where proposals can be created, voted on, and executed across several chains in parallel.

This is especially important in an era of rising Layer-1 gas costs and users operating on high-throughput chains like Solana. MultiGov meets communities “where they are,” lowering barriers to participation and boosting engagement regardless of which chain a member holds their tokens on

Solana users can take part in governing cross-chain protocols without leaving the Solana network.

What Is Wormhole’s MultiGov?

MultiGov is Wormhole’s cross-chain governance framework designed to extend DAO governance beyond the confines of a single blockchain. In essence, it enables a single unified DAO to operate seamlessly across multiple networks simultaneously.

Some key features of MultiGov include:

• Hub-and-Spoke Governance: A hub chain operates as the central governance controller (hosting the core DAO logic and proposal state), while spoke chains act as local governance extensions. The hub (in Wormhole’s case, ETH) maintains the canonical governance state, while each spoke (e.g., Solana) hosts a local version of the governance token and voting contract.

• Cross-Chain Voting: Token holders on any integrated chain can cast votes on proposals from their native chain. Votes on each spoke are securely transmitted to the hub via Wormhole’s cross-chain messaging.

• Aggregated Tally & Execution: The hub collects and tallies votes from all chains and determines proposal outcomes. Once a proposal passes, the decision can be executed on the hub and relayed for automatic execution on each spoke chain; ensuring the proposal’s effect is synchronized network-wide.

• Wormhole-Powered Interoperability: Under the hood, MultiGov uses Wormhole’s proven cross-chain message protocol to pass around votes and proposal data, backed by the network of guardians for security. This removes the need for fragmented “snapshot” off-chain votes or manual multisig coordination across chains.

• Flexibility and Inclusivity: Any blockchain that Wormhole supports can be added as a spoke, making the DAO’s governance truly chain-agnostic. This increases decentralization and inclusivity, as governance isn’t limited to one ecosystem.

In short, MultiGov lets a DAO become multichain by default, with unified decision-making that spans ecosystems. Wormhole built MultiGov in collaboration with governance platform Tally and development team ScopeLift, combining expertise in on-chain voting interfaces and smart contract tooling. Wormhole’s own DAO is the first real-world implementation of this model, making it a trailblazer for cross-chain governance.

Wormhole´s first MultiGov proposal is here

Are you too busy to read the 2 new proposals? Let me break them down for you. In esence, they are boring proposals that need to take place before the fun begins.

Proposal 1: Ratification of Code of Conduct for Wormhole Governance

• What: Establishes clear rules for Wormhole governance discussions (stay on topic, be respectful, back claims with evidence, no spam or illegal content, protect privacy, encourage diversity).

Told you, boring stuff.

• Why: Ensures productive, inclusive, and safe debate across the Wormhole community.

Even though it is boring, it is needed.

• When & How: On-chain vote via Tally on May 23, 2025. Requires quorum of 350 million $W to pass.

The vote is live, make sure to vote or delegate your vote to myself

Proposal 2: Deployment of $W Token on Solana

• What: Ratifies a formal, multi-stage workflow for Wormhole governance—defining proposal drafting (WIPs), forum discussion, snapshot voting, on-chain MultiGov vote, execution rules, timeframes, and participant roles (authors, sponsors, delegates).

Total Lead Time: ≈ 22 days from initial draft to live changes.

• Why: Streamlines and standardizes how changes move from idea to on-chain action, ensuring transparency and consistency.

• When & How: On-chain vote via Tally on May 23, 2025; requires 350 million $W quorum to pass.

Conclusion : Impact on Solana and the Future of Multichain DAOs

Wormhole’s MultiGov model makes Solana one of the first chains to be part of a truly multichain DAO, letting $W holders govern a cross-chain protocol without ever leaving Solana or paying Ethereum gas fees. By plugging Solana directly into on-chain votes and execution, this framework positions Solana as an equal governance partner alongside Ethereum and major L2s, strengthens inter-chain collaboration, and proves that DAOs can operate seamlessly across multiple networks. As Solana users begin casting votes and shaping proposals on Wormhole, they’re not just influencing one protocol—they’re pioneering a new era of inclusive, resilient multichain governance that other Solana-based projects can adopt to unify their communities and boost cross-ecosystem innovation.

Remember to delegate your voting to me, I´ll make sure to vote on every proposal.

Once dismissed as a hype-fueled experiment, Solana has evolved into a leading force in the blockchain industry by 2025. This transformation isn’t just a story of technical upgrades or market rallies, it’s a case study in strategic execution and environmental alignment.

In this article, we will evaluate Solana's rise through the lens of business management, analyzing the macro environment that shaped its external opportunities and threats, as well as the micro dynamics that defined its internal strategy, operations, and competitive edge.

From navigating shifting regulatory climates and technological megatrends to executing with startup-level speed and enterprise-grade discipline, Solana’s trajectory offers key insights for investors, operators, and policymakers alike.

Riding Global Waves: How Solana has Dominated the Macro Environment

The macro environment involves external forces that shape industries. Solana didn’t just survive these forces; it surfed them like a pro. Let’s break down how it mastered the technological, legal, environmental, and social trends of the mid-2020s.

Technological Trends: AI and Speed Demons

The 2020s have been defined by two tech megatrends: the artificial intelligence (AI) boom and the race for high-performance blockchains. Solana didn’t just keep up, it led the charge. In 2023, it became the first layer-1 blockchain to integrate AI through a ChatGPT plugin, letting users query on-chain data with natural language. Imagine asking, “What’s my wallet balance?” and getting an instant answer without diving into code. This wasn’t a gimmick but a signal that Solana was ready to bridge the AI and crypto worlds.

The Solana Foundation doubled down, expanding its AI grants program from $1 million to $10 million to fund AI-driven projects on its network. This move aligned Solana with the AI revolution, attracting developers eager to blend decentralized tech with machine learning. Meanwhile, new layer-1 competitors like Monad and 0G emerged, promising blazing speeds and AI-native designs. Monad, an Ethereum-compatible chain, boasts 10,000 transactions per second (TPS), while 0G aims to power decentralized AI apps.

Solana didn´t waste time and delivered Firedancer, a new validator client developed by Jump Crypto. In a live test, Firedancer pushed Solana to a jaw-dropping 1.2 million TPS, orders of magnitude beyond Monad’s goals and Ethereum’s rollup dreams.

This wasn’t just a flex; it proved Solana’s monolithic chain design, optimized for raw speed and scalability, was light-years ahead. While others scrambled to catch up, Solana was setting the pace, proving it could handle the high-throughput demands of a Web3 future.

Legal Landscape: From Storm to Sunshine

Crypto has long been a regulatory minefield, especially in the U.S., where the SEC and DOJ played whack-a-mole with projects in 2022–2023. Solana, like many altcoins, faced uncertainty when the SEC labeled it a “security” in lawsuits, casting a shadow over its U.S. prospects. But by 2025, the legal clouds parted, and Solana found itself basking in regulatory sunshine.

The 2024 U.S. elections marked a turning point. A crypto-friendly political shift, amplified by former President Donald Trump’s resurgence, led to a softer stance on digital assets. The DOJ disbanded its crypto enforcement unit, and the SEC paused high-profile cases, signaling a move away from “regulation-by-enforcement.” New policy proposals for clear digital asset rules gained traction, reducing the compliance burden for projects like Solana.

Even the United States President launched a Coin on Solana

Green Cred: The ESG Edge

A single Solana transaction uses less energy than a Google search, making it a darling of ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) investors.

Since 2021, the Solana Foundation has offset the network’s carbon footprint, achieving full carbon neutrality by 2022 through partnerships with projects like EcoToken and Regen.

By aligning with global carbon reduction goals, Solana future-proofs itself against potential environmental regulations. It also appeals to enterprises with strict sustainability mandates, opening doors to real-world use cases like tokenized bonds or funds.

Social Surge: The Community Comeback

Crypto thrives on vibes, and Solana’s social momentum in 2024–2025 is electric. After the 2022 bear market gutted SOL’s price (down 90% from its peak), sentiment hit rock bottom. Even the developer community flinched.

By 2023, even Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin gave Solana a shout-out, praising its “earnest, smart developer community” and wishing it success. That endorsement from a rival was a turning point, boosting morale. Events like Breakpoint 2023, with 3,000+ attendees, buzzed with optimism. Hackathons, like the Summer Camp series, drew thousands, and community initiatives like Solana Spaces and Superteams kept the grassroots humming.

Online, the narrative shifted. Gone were the gripes about past outages or FTX ties. Instead, crypto Twitter lit up with excitement over Firedancer, the Saga phone, and Solana’s thriving dApps. Influencers like Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital called Solana “the fastest horse” in the layer-1 race, predicting it could power fully on-chain exchanges, a feat once deemed impossible. Social sentiment indexes hit multi-year highs, reflecting a community that believes Solana is here to stay.

The Micro Mastery: Winning the Inner Game

While macro trends set the stage, Solana’s micro environment its internal operations and market dynamics has been where the real magic happens. From stellar leadership to explosive user growth, Solana’s execution is a case study in blockchain excellence.

Leadership: The Solana Foundation’s Iron Hand

At the heart of Solana’s success is the Solana Foundation, a non-profit steering the ecosystem with vision and pragmatism. Alongside Solana Labs, the for-profit tech arm, the Foundation has kept the network humming through crises. Post-FTX, when Solana’s ties to the collapsed exchange raised eyebrows, the Foundation stayed solvent and ramped up support. It funded critical upgrades, like Firedancer, and backed new validator clients to boost decentralization.

The Foundation’s grant programs are a developer’s dream, offering everything from $5,000 micro-grants to multi-million-dollar ecosystem funds. In 2024, it launched a $1 million fund for interoperable financial apps, sparking DeFi innovation. Solana Labs complemented this with consumer products like the Saga smartphone and educational initiatives like Solana University. The result? A developer count that didn’t just hold steady but grew, with high retention rates. Many who joined during the 2021 bull market stuck around, maturing into ecosystem leaders.

The Foundation’s financial prudence shone through. When infrastructure providers bailed post-FTX, it incentivized decentralized RPC nodes and core devs, ensuring network stability. By 2024, outages were a distant memory, and validator numbers climbed, signaling a robust network. This “company-level” stewardship has been Solana’s backbone, turning vision into reality.

Market Metrics: Numbers Don’t Lie

Solana’s 2024 market performance is a blockbuster. On-chain activity surged 1,900%, with 100 million monthly active addresses by September, nearly half of all crypto addresses. From my perspective, that’s five times the combined number of users of Ethereum’s L2s and rival L1s. Solana’s speed and sub-cent fees drew users for NFTs, trading, and dApps, mirroring early internet adoption rates.

DeFi roared back, with total value locked (TVL) hitting $7 billion by October 2024, up from a post-FTX low of $1 billion. Liquid staking protocols like Jito and Marinade drove billions in TVL, while DEXes like Raydium and Jupiter matched Ethereum’s trading volumes on peak days. Solana’s trading infrastructure; order-book DEXes, AMMs, and aggregators regained liquidity, cementing its DeFi dominance.

Then there was the memecoin mania. Starting with $BONK in 2022, Solana became the go-to chain for meme tokens like POPCAT and DOGEWIFHAT. These speculative assets drove a 151% spike in network activity, with memecoins accounting for 78% of DEX volume at one point. While risky, this craze showcased Solana’s ability to handle millions of daily transactions without choking—a stress test it aced.

Beyond crypto-native use cases, Solana attracted TradFi. Franklin Templeton tokenized a mutual fund on Solana, and fintechs like Securitize (backed by BlackRock) built tokenization platforms. Even Société Générale planned stablecoins on Solana. These moves signal Solana’s potential as infrastructure for real-world assets, a market worth trillions. With $173 million raised for Solana projects in Q3 2024 and hackathons spawning startups, the ecosystem is a magnet for capital and talent.

Competitive Edge: Outrunning the Pack

The layer-1 race is brutal, with Ethereum, Aptos, Sui, and newcomers like Monad vying for supremacy. Solana’s edge? Relentless execution. It commands the second-largest share of developer interest (11.2%), trailing only Ethereum, per a16z’s 2024 report. Despite flashy launches, rivals like Aptos and Sui lag in developer traction.

Technologically, Solana’s monolithic chain delivers 3,000–5,000 TPS in real conditions, with Firedancer proving capacity for millions. Competitors like Aptos and Sui, with their parallel execution engines, can’t match this. Solana’s 400ms block times and dirt-cheap fees enable unique use cases, like real-time trading and gaming, that others can’t touch.

Solana’s ecosystem is another trump card. It’s a one-stop shop for DeFi, NFTs, gaming, and payments, fostering composability. A user can trade an NFT, swap tokens, and play a game—all on one chain. Rivals lack this breadth, fragmenting their user bases. Even Ethereum, scaling via L2s, faces complexity that Solana avoids with its unified Layer 1.

Solana has also tackled past weaknesses. Validator counts are in the thousands, and Firedancer boosts decentralization. Outages, a 2021–2022 sore spot, vanished after upgrades. As Kyle Samani noted, Solana is “on the cusp” of delivering its original vision—performant, on-chain systems no competitor has matched. In the layer-1 race, Solana isn’t just ahead; it’s the benchmark.

The Investor Angle: Why Solana Shines

Solana’s macro and micro wins have investors buzzing. Top VCs like a16z, Multicoin, and Jump Crypto, early backers in 2021, have doubled. Multicoin’s Samani calls Solana a “conviction play” for its throughput and community. Even TradFi players like Visa Ventures and JPMorgan’s blockchain fund are dipping their toes into Solana startups.

For investors, Solana checks key boxes:

• Scalability: With millions of TPS possible, Solana can host mass-adoption apps, capturing huge transaction fees if crypto goes mainstream.

• Regulatory Clarity: The U.S.’s softer stance de-risks SOL, making it investable for institutions.

• Developer Mojo: Solana’s growing developer share (11.2%) signals innovation and staying power.

• Network Effects: Its broadව

A Bright Future Ahead

Solana’s journey from speculative token to blockchain titan is a testament to its ability to master both macro and micro environments. By riding tech trends like AI, navigating regulatory shifts, embracing sustainability, and fostering a passionate community, Solana has turned macro challenges into opportunities. On the micro level, its stellar leadership, explosive market growth, and competitive dominance make it a layer-1 leader.

As of April 2025, Solana stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Ethereum, a feat unimaginable in the dark days of 2022. Risks remain—crypto is volatile, and tech challenges persist—but Solana’s depth of usage, developer talent, and network effects make it a safer bet than ever. For investors, it offers a rare blend of high-performance tech, regulatory tailwinds, and a vibrant ecosystem—the ingredients for long-term value.

If the 2020–2021 cycle was about Solana’s promise, 2024–2025 is about its delivery. By mastering the macro and micro, Solana has earned its place as a blockchain superstar, poised to shape the decentralized future.

References

1. Coinlist Blog. (2024). Solana’s Resurgence in 2024. blog.coinlist.co

2. Cointelegraph. (2023). Solana Integrates ChatGPT Plugin for On-Chain Queries. cointelegraph.com

3. Cointelegraph. (2023). Solana Foundation Expands AI Grants Program to $10M. cointelegraph.com

4. Messari. (2024). Monad: The High-Throughput EVM-Compatible L1. messari.io

5. 0G. (2024). Zero Gravity: The AI-Native Blockchain. 0g.ai

6. Messari. (2024). Firedancer Pushes Solana to 1.2M TPS in Test. messari.io

7. Reuters. (2025). U.S. DOJ Disbands Crypto Enforcement Unit. reuters.com

8. Reuters. (2025). SEC Pauses High-Profile Crypto Cases. reuters.com

9. Coincodex. (2023). Solana Achieves Carbon Neutrality with On-Chain Credits. coincodex.com

10. Solana. (2024). Solana Ecosystem Developer Metrics. solana.com

11. Cointelegraph. (2022). Vitalik Buterin Praises Solana’s Developer Community. cointelegraph.com

12. Mitrade. (2024). Kyle Samani: Solana is the Fastest Horse in L1. mitrade.com

13. Solana. (2024). Solana Foundation Grant Programs and Firedancer Support. solana.com

14. Messari. (2024). Solana’s $1M Finternet Grant Fund. messari.io

15. A16z Crypto. (2024). State of Crypto 2024: Solana’s Developer Share Grows. a16zcrypto.com

16. Blog Coinlist. (2024). Solana’s Memecoin Boom Drives 151% Activity Surge. blog.coinlist.co

17. Blog Coinlist. (2024). Franklin Templeton Tokenizes Fund on Solana. blog.coinlist.co

18. Blog Coinlist. (2024). Solana Projects Raise $173M in Q3 2024. blog.coinlist.co

19. A16z Crypto. (2024). Solana Commands 11.2% Developer Interest. a16zcrypto.com

20. Mitrade. (2025). Kyle Samani on Solana’s Investment Potential. mitrade.com

21. Messari. (2021). Solana’s Early VC Backers: a16z, Polychain, Multicoin. messari.io

I could keep this essay mainly focused on the KPIs comparing Solana to Ethereum and all the other L2s combined or spend most of my time debunking all the myths that surround the chain to this date due to disinformation and bad faith. Instead, I'll briefly go over those, and right after, I'll jump into my personal views of why I put all my eggs in Solana's basket and why I firmly believe it's the best place for me and my company to be. Oh yeah, and I'll approach the meme coin talk as well.

Please read this essay with a grain of salt as it is biased, taking into consideration that I literally jumped all in into the Solana ecosystem last year after quitting my NYC startup job and moving back to Brazil so I could solely focus on building Hexis, but this is a topic for another essay.

The numbers don’t lie:

So, let's briefly talk about numbers: Since around September 2024, we have seen an uptrend in all major KPIs that blockchain analysts like to see and talk about.

• Developers building on Solana = Surpassed Ethereum and all the L2s.

• Daily Active Addresses = Higher than all the other major chains combined.

• 

  Protocol + chain fees (Revenue) = Absurdly high

  

• Trading volume = No need to talk about

• 

• The chain that the President of the USA chooses to launch his token 😆

The list goes on and on... If you don't believe me, you can check the metrics using any credible source...

• https://dune.com/Henrystats/ethereum-vs-solana

• https://defillama.com/compare?chains=Solana&chains=Ethereum&chainFees=true

• https://tokenterminal.com/explorer/projects/solana

The list goes on and on... If you don't believe me, you can check the metrics using any credible source...

• https://dune.com/Henrystats/ethereum-vs-solana

• https://defillama.com/compare?chains=Solana&chains=Ethereum&chainFees=true

• https://tokenterminal.com/explorer/projects/solana

Yeah, on TVL, Solana is still (very) behind Ethereum, but I have a strong feeling that this might change in the upcoming years. The game has changed, and Solana is working hard to prove itself and bring the big guys in with the real money. We have the regulations in the USA opening the door for a Solana ETF, we have major companies starting to build on Solana, and more than that, we have a strong effort from the Solana Foundation (which until the past month was my major critique) trying to stay ahead of all the regulations. Once we start to see mass institutional onboarding, it will be just a matter of time, and this has already started.

Solana ETF in the USA:

One good example of this is Black Rock making moves:

Solana Foundation is making moves to be ahead in the regulation game with the launch of the Solana Policy Institute:

With all that out of the way, I just need to kill some myths before we can continue with my personal view of why I chose Solana.

Whenever we talk about Solana, there are always some ghosts from the past (or some complete bullshit) that comes back to haunt us, so let's tackle them.

1st Myth: Outages

Solana goes down a lot! How can you trust a chain that the "foundation" can restart it with the click of a button??

Well, this one is actually composed of two myths: Solana doesn't go down all the time. Actually, the last time we had an incident was in February 2024, but because everyone out there needs to hate Solana, they like to scream that! On the other side, Solana is one of the few chains that deals with situations like this publicly and in a good manner. It's not like other chains never went down. It's just that they don't talk about it or share data regarding the incident.

One small article that tackles this is: https://jp12.medium.com/l1-outage-list-c89a1d167d0a

On the other hand, Solana keeps this dashboard updated, containing all historical data about incidents, so go there and check it yourself. (https://status.solana.com/uptime?page=1)

The second aspect of this myth is that the Solana Foundation somehow could restart the network by itself, but in reality, in order to restart the chain, there is a need for 80% or more validators to agree and take action. They handle this together via a Discord server.

2nd Myth: Centralization

With that comes the myth of centralization. People always throw that at me as if they had a "secret weapon," but in reality, it is just a really bad argument (if you consider it an argument at all).

This myth was born due to how expensive it is to run your own Solana node (around $1200/month in major Cloud providers), but for some reason, people still think we're in 2020... Today, Solana has more than 1300 validators across the globe (you can check them here: https://www.validators.app/validators?locale=en&network=mainnet)

Today's Nakamoto Coefficient of Solana is around 20, a very good number compared to all other chains, but we've been higher, and I believe we will get back there! To have a comparison, Cosmos has a score of 7, Avalanche a score of 25, and Polygon a score of 4. Yeah, Solana isn't as centralized as your eth maxi told you.

“Simply put: the higher the Nakamoto Coefficient on a network, the more resilient the network will be to these kinds of attacks. And the more resilient the network is to these kinds of attacks, the more decentralized and censorship-resistant it is.” Check the Nakamoto Coefficient here: https://nakaflow.io

3rd Myth: Nothing besides Memecoins

The third myth is that there are no dAPPs on Solana and that the chain only exists due to meme coins (something that many consider cancer, but I think otherwise... this is a topic of its own for a later day), but this is a lie. Solana's "super meme season" started some months ago (around Jan 2024 but it took a while for it to get traction), and just as Ethereum, BSC, and Arbitrum had their volume increase a lot during their meme-coin season, Solana had the same. But on steroids, as Solana offers a simple and direct UI/UX.

People who use this argument usually go on talking about PumpFun, and yeah, I totally agree that PF brought a lot of volume on-chain by solving a major issue (and creating a few others), but Solana is NOT PumpFun.

So, let’s check how Solana was before PF:

• Here, we can see that the uptrend on TVL (on SOL) started at the end of 2023 and not 2024

Besides that, Solana has always had a great community, and many dAPPs today the most used apps are DeFi platforms. For example, Kamino (the AAVE of Solana on steroids) made 7mil on fees in the last month (which many consider a bad month as "memecoins" died).

I believe Solana is the chain that puts the most effort into hackathons. The foundation, together with many investors, promotes several hackathons every year to help incubate great new teams and projects. Keep in mind that most of today's great dAPPs came from there... so it seems to be working out!

You can check about Solana hackathons here

And actually, they are starting a new one!

Today, the chain has more than 200 active protocols, many of which are in the top 100 of all protocols when looking from a fee generation or daily active users perspective. Yeah, it's not as much as Polygon with their 600 protocols, but all the EVMs have an enormous amount of protocols due to the ease of launching a fork or a copy-cat as they are all built on Solidity while in Solana, the Chad devs must know Rust to build real good programs.

I won't spend more time on it, but you can check the numbers here: https://defillama.com/chains

Now that I took all that out of the way, let's talk about Why Solana is the place to be.

Now that I have taken all that out of the way, lets talk about Why Solana is the place to be.

Why Solana?

To explain why I love Solana, I must explain how I ended up here. It all started back in 2021. I had recently graduated from college (Class of 2020), and even though since 2018 or so, I had already traded some tokens, since I had never before actually utilized any of the chains, it was pure speculative trading. In 2021, this changed when I learned deeper about DeFi and how I could make some good extra amount of money by yield farming.

Once I started playing around with the first DeFi projects, I fell in love and started studying all the protocols I liked very profoundly. I remember having a notebook where I would write down everything about the protocol I was studying. I don't remember it all, but some names that came to mind from back then were Francium (this was one of the best!), Larix, Tulip, Cropper, and so many others... Some are still around and stronger than ever, like Raydium, Orca, and Lifinity. (And soooo many others that I don't remember right now ofc)

Around mid-2022, the NFT season boomed, and it was the first time I met Brazilians in Solana. Because I was only consuming content directly from the protocols and some American KOLs, I had never before interacted with Brazilians on WEB3, and it was a great experience. I helped in the construction of CookinDAO, which became for a period of time the biggest Brazilian DAO solely focused on Solana - Solana was THE THING in Brazil and in many other third-world countries because, for the first time, we had a super-fast chain that was so cheap that anyone could use it and build on it. On CookinDAO, I made friends and built a new family, linked not by blood but by the Solana chain. To this date, I'm an active member of CookinDAO and many other amazing Brazilian communities that help onboard newcomers to WEB3.

In CookinDAO, I also met my current business partner, Rafael Ribas who, IMHO, is one of the most intelligent and competent individuals when talking about Solana technology and development. Back in 2023, we noticed an uptrend in trading volume, and because we didn't want to miss the train, we developed a trading software that would help us with different automated trading strategies. We monetized it, and this software helped us bootstrap what Hexis Labs is today: a research and development firm focused on Solana with a strong educational arm to help incubate the top builders of tomorrow.

So, for me, the answer to "Why Solana" goes beyond just feelings:

• The tech actually works: The numbers I shared earlier don't lie - insanely low costs (like fractions of a penny) + blazing speeds (65k+ TPS) + that exponential growth with IBRL. When you're trying to build something that won't break the bank for users, there's literally nothing else that comes close!

• The Chad devs are HERE: We've somehow surpassed Ethereum in active devs despite needing to know Rust (which isn't easy!). This isn't just random devs either - these are the ones willing to learn harder languages because they know the tech is worth it.

• It's actually being used: Remember those metrics I talked about? Leading ALL chains in daily active addresses isn't just some vanity metric - it means real people are actually USING this thing! Add in the massive protocol fees and institutional players sniffing around, and it's obvious this isn't just hype.

• No BS culture: Where else would you see the project's founder and president openly debate something like SIMD-228 on opposite sides? Seriously, try to imagine that in any other ecosystem! This place values actual debate over meaningless consensus. As Toly put it, "Steel sharpens steel." (https://x.com/aeyakovenko/status/1897853895453688208)

• Anyone can build here: How else could me and Rafael, two guys from Brazil, bootstrap a successful business on-chain with minimal capital? The combo of practically zero fees and insane throughput means builders from ANYWHERE can jump in and create.

My personal journey from just trading tokens to building Hexis Labs is basically Solana's story in microcosm - from "maybe this works" to "holy shit, this WORKS."

And I'm definitely not alone here. Talk to any founder building in the ecosystem and you'll hear the same thing:

Solana is different, Solana is Home.

This essay and many others are part of it as we want to bring in easy and plain English difficult tech topics and talk about the Solana ecosystem. So expect from us articles like these, deep dives on projects and teams, educational content for builders, and deep technical research about Solana technology and infrastructure.

We are here to help Solana grow and become a better place. We will achieve that by developing tech, helping other teams, and evangelizing Solana via articles and digital content. Help us by following us on X and giving us feedback!