Solana's Next Big Catalyst: DATs, ETFs, and the Emerging DeFi Renaissance

The cryptocurrency market finds itself at a fascinating inflection point. Bitcoin trades above $100,000, Ethereum approaches all-time highs, and yet sentiment among many market participants remains surprisingly muted. Against this backdrop of quiet optimism, Solana stands poised for what could be its most significant catalyst since the network's recovery from the FTX collapse: the imminent arrival of Solana Digital Asset Trusts and Exchange-Traded Funds.

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Brandon Potts, partner at Framework Ventures and the firm's dedicated Solana specialist, joined the Lightspeed podcast to unpack why he believes the market is dramatically underpricing these upcoming developments. With nearly five years at Framework and early investments in protocols like Jito and DFlow, Potts brings a unique perspective on where Solana stands today and where institutional capital flows might take it tomorrow.

The conversation that unfolded touched on everything from the tactical considerations of liquid staking token architecture to the philosophical underpinnings of what makes blockchain networks valuable in the first place. What emerged was a compelling case for Solana as a network that has been quietly building the infrastructure necessary to capture the next wave of institutional and retail adoption—even as narratives on social media suggest the ecosystem has lost its momentum.

The State of Solana in Late 2025

Solana's current market position represents something of a paradox. On-chain metrics remain robust, with meme coin activity actually exceeding year-ago levels despite the prevailing narrative that such activity has dried up. The SOL-BTC ratio has improved over three-month time horizons, demonstrating relative strength against the apex cryptocurrency. Yet the perception persists that Solana has somehow lost its luster compared to the heights of late 2024.

Potts acknowledged this narrative disconnect directly, noting that "there's kind of this dearth of narrative and it does seem like we are somewhat in this doldrum." However, he emphasized that behind the scenes, infrastructure improvements across the ecosystem have accelerated dramatically. Protocol teams, application developers, and the core Anza team have all increased their velocity of development and coordination.

The Framework partner expressed particular admiration for how the Solana ecosystem has responded to this period of relative quiet. Rather than retreating, teams have used the time to strengthen their offerings and extend the rails necessary to capture future value. This building phase, largely invisible to casual observers focused on price action and Twitter sentiment, may prove foundational for Solana's next leg of growth.

"I think the writing is on the wall that Solana writ large is going to see a reinvigoration," Potts stated. "And then the question in my mind is who stands to benefit the most from that?"

Digital Asset Trusts: The Overlooked Catalyst

The conversation turned quickly to what Potts views as the most underappreciated near-term catalyst for Solana: Digital Asset Trusts. The math he presented was compelling and deserves careful consideration from market participants who may have dismissed the DAT narrative as overblown or fully priced in.

Ethereum provides the template for understanding the potential magnitude of these flows. According to Potts, Ethereum DATs have raised approximately $15 billion to date, with another roughly $30 billion in Ethereum ETFs, creating approximately $45 billion in what he terms "invisible demand." This capital inflow has corresponded with Ethereum essentially doubling its market cap and adding approximately $300 billion in net market value.

The value creation multiplier here is striking: roughly six to seven times the actual capital raised. Potts applied similar logic to Solana's situation, where DATs have already accumulated approximately $2.5 billion in cash and ETFs have yet to launch in any material fashion.

"If Sol DATs raised 2.5 billion, come out of the gate with some momentum, monetize premium, and kind of smash the first ATM, let's say they get five billion," Potts calculated. "And let's say the ETFs raise double that, fifteen billion, at sort of that same six to seven multiple in value creation that Ethereum experienced. That's, you know, ballpark 100 billion in market cap value that could be created over the coming months."

This analysis suggests that current market prices may not adequately reflect the magnitude of institutional capital waiting to enter Solana through regulated investment vehicles. The timing of these launches around potential Federal Reserve rate cuts in mid-September could create a confluence of positive catalysts.

The Velocity Factor: Why This Cycle May Move Faster

Historical patterns may not adequately capture how quickly the DAT landscape can evolve. Potts pointed to the contrast between Michael Saylor's multi-year Bitcoin accumulation strategy and newer entrants like Tom Lee and SharpLink, who have acquired comparable supply positions in a matter of weeks.

"It took Saylor, kind of the OG of all this, many years to acquire the stack of Bitcoin that he has to date," Potts observed. "But then you have folks like Tom Lee, and of course, the folks at SharpLink, they've essentially acquired the same supply in a function of a month and a half."

This acceleration suggests that Solana's DAT and ETF story could unfold more rapidly than historical precedents might suggest. The infrastructure for rapid capital deployment now exists, and competition among institutional vehicles to establish positions creates its own momentum. Market participants accustomed to gradual institutional adoption may be caught off-guard by the speed at which Solana's institutional story develops.

The Jito Sol Thesis: Positioning for On-Chain Activity

One of the more technically nuanced arguments Potts presented concerned the choice of liquid staking tokens among Solana DAT operators. He expressed disappointment that many new DATs have chosen to roll their own liquid staking tokens through Sanctum rather than utilizing established solutions like Jito Sol.

The argument centers on what Potts calls being "synthetically short on-chain activity." When a DAT creates its own LST, it primarily captures staking emissions—a yield source that will inevitably taper as Solana's inflationary schedule continues its decline. By contrast, Jito Sol captures not only emissions but also priority fees and MEV activity, providing exposure to organic on-chain economic activity.

"If you're actually bullish on Solana and you want to position yourself in the most bullish kind of value-accrective, soul-per-share sort of positioning, I think it would behoove these newer ones coming to market to frankly use things like Jito Sol," Potts argued. "Where there's liquidity, the custodians are using it, there's all sorts of on-chain capital already denominated in it. And frankly, it positions you for longer-term upside."

This perspective reveals the strategic thinking underlying token selection decisions that might seem purely technical to outside observers. The choice of LST architecture reflects fundamental assumptions about Solana's future: whether value will derive primarily from monetary policy (emissions) or from genuine economic activity (fees and MEV). For true Solana bulls, the latter should dominate, making Jito Sol integration more attractive despite the loss of branding opportunities that come with custom LSTs.

Narrative Building in the DAT Era

A recurring theme throughout the conversation concerned the importance of narrative in driving capital flows—and the recognition that on-chain metrics, while important, may matter less than compelling storytelling in attracting institutional capital.

Potts pointed to Tom Lee's framing of Ethereum around stablecoins and AI as an example of effective narrative construction. "When I look at Tom Lee and, you know, Godspeed, love him—he's doing great work," Potts said. "He basically comes in and says Ethereum is stablecoins and future-looking, it'll be where AI takes place."

The choice of stablecoins as a narrative anchor is strategically sound. Stablecoin supply represents a high-fidelity, easily communicated metric that demonstrates growth in a way that resonates with traditional finance audiences. The metric is transparent, updated in real-time on-chain, and directly connected to economic activity.

For Solana, the question of what equivalent metric or narrative might anchor institutional interest remains open. The retail-oriented, meme coin-adjacent reputation that Solana has developed could theoretically prove problematic for institutional adoption. However, Potts pushed back on this concern, noting that Ethereum's early years were similarly characterized by ICOs and NFTs—activities that seemed speculative at the time but laid groundwork for broader adoption.

"These institutions, when you talk about mercenary capital, they've tried to cram sort of their worldview and their demands into every possible configuration you could think of," Potts observed. "First and foremost, they tried to roll their own private chains, which aren't blockchains. They've tried to cram everything into Bitcoin. Obviously, the zeitgeist now is we're going to put everything into Ethereum. But I think what I'm trying to get at is that's just generally where people are at mentally as it relates to understanding crypto and blockchains."

The Limitations of Crypto Twitter Consensus

Both Potts and host Jack expressed skepticism about the reliability of Twitter sentiment as a guide to investment decision-making. The platform that once served as a real-time consensus mechanism for crypto markets has become increasingly disconnected from actual market movements.

"What has crypto Twitter gotten right this cycle?" Potts asked rhetorically. "I can't really point out a thing."

The Circle IPO served as a particularly instructive example. When Circle's S-1 filing revealed the revenue-sharing arrangements with Coinbase, Twitter consensus quickly formed around the view that the business model was fundamentally flawed and the IPO would struggle. Instead, the offering succeeded dramatically, demonstrating the gap between Twitter sentiment and actual institutional appetite.

"The real black pill on CT for me was the Circle IPO," the host acknowledged. "Everyone was like, 'Oh my God, they're giving this much revenue to Coinbase, it's a terrible business, why would anyone invest in Circle?' And then that IPO just went gangbusters."

This disconnect suggests that market participants who rely heavily on social media for investment signals may be systematically misinformed about where capital is actually flowing and which assets are accumulating institutional interest.

DeFi 2.0: The Stablecoin Renaissance

The conversation eventually turned to what Potts has termed "DeFi's Second Act"—a fundamental shift in how on-chain capital formation and financial services operate. At the center of this transformation sits stablecoins, which have evolved from simple trading instruments into foundational infrastructure for a new financial system.

The regulatory clarity that has emerged, particularly under the current administration, has fundamentally changed the opportunity set for entrepreneurs building on stablecoin rails. What was once legally ambiguous—potentially even career-destroying for traditional finance professionals who ventured into the space—has become socially acceptable and even encouraged.

"Once we kind of got through that hurdle, things in large part thanks to the Trump administration, like it was kind of just open season," Potts explained. "Okay, wow, these are actually distribution vehicles where we can acquire customers basically globally from day one."

The global distribution capability that stablecoins provide represents a genuine innovation over traditional fintech solutions, which typically require state-by-state or country-by-country licensing, local banking relationships, and extensive regulatory compliance frameworks. Stablecoin-based businesses can, in principle, deploy globally from day one.

The Treasury Connection: Stablecoins as National Interest

Beyond the business model innovation, Potts highlighted the increasingly recognized role of stablecoins in supporting U.S. Treasury markets. Major stablecoin issuers have become significant purchasers of Treasury securities, providing a distributed, non-politicized source of demand for government debt.

"These instruments, stablecoins specifically, are becoming larger and larger purchasers of U.S. debt," Potts noted. "And it's the number one issue, I think, across the board for most politicians or Americans—just like the value of the dollar and how do we maintain world reserve status. Well, look, you need demand on the Treasury bills that you're going to be issuing. And stablecoins provide just a very resilient, non-politicized, distributed manner to do so."

Current Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has projected stablecoin supply could reach $4 trillion, a figure Potts suggested he would "take the over on." Such growth would transform stablecoins from a cryptocurrency market niche into a systemically important component of global dollar markets.

This alignment of interests between stablecoin issuers and national fiscal policy helps explain the regulatory tailwinds the sector has experienced. It also suggests that the growth trajectory for stablecoins may prove more durable than previous crypto market cycles.

The Compression of Legacy Systems

Potts described an emerging pattern where crypto-native founders are building businesses that collapse multiple legacy functions into unified on-chain systems. Rather than requiring separate banking relationships, core banking software, and financing arrangements, on-chain businesses can accomplish all three through smart contract architectures.

"They're just collapsing both legacy banking core software, but then also legacy financing," Potts explained. "Make no mistake about it, legacy banks—they're not really willing to go too far out on the risk tail. And they're not really willing to work with kind of the mom and pops or the small folks. They're really all interested in one thing only: size."

This dynamic creates natural opportunities for crypto-native alternatives that can serve market segments underserved by traditional finance. The $270+ billion in stablecoin liquidity seeking yield provides the capital base for these new business models, while the cost structure of blockchain-based operations allows for profitability at smaller scales than traditional financial services.

The Pass-Through Yield Controversy

An emerging regulatory battle around "pass-through yield"—the practice of distributing interest earnings to stablecoin holders—illustrates the disruption potential of on-chain financial services. Traditional banks derive significant revenue from the spread between what they earn on deposits and what they pay depositors. Stablecoins that pass through Treasury yields threaten this fundamental business model.

"I think it's notable to see that the banking lobbyists aren't exactly stoked to see that there's pass-back yield happening," Potts observed. "That's kind of their whole business model. They're positioning this as a risk to the entire economy and saying only we should be allowed to underwrite credit and loans."

The Genius Act appears to prohibit direct yield pass-through on stablecoins, but workarounds have emerged, particularly around Circle's relationship with Coinbase. Traditional financial institutions are pushing to close these loopholes, recognizing the existential threat that yield-bearing stablecoins pose to traditional deposit-taking businesses.

For crypto market participants, this regulatory battle represents a high-stakes test of whether on-chain financial innovation will be permitted to compete with traditional banks on a level playing field.

Competition from Application-Specific Chains

One challenge for the Solana thesis that emerged in the conversation concerns the proliferation of application-specific Layer 1 chains and Layer 2 rollups being developed by major financial services firms. Robinhood, Circle, Stripe, and even Google Cloud have announced blockchain development initiatives, raising questions about whether these firms see value in deploying on existing networks like Solana versus building their own infrastructure.

Potts pushed back on the significance of this trend, arguing that the sample size remains too small to draw definitive conclusions. "We have maybe what, half a dozen? Like, writ large, is that a large enough data sampling to say, look, the next 6,000 things coming on-chain from this perspective, they're all going the same way as these first six? I think that's a mistake."

The Framework partner also noted that the perceived "Layer 1 premium" in token valuations has compressed significantly, reducing one incentive for new projects to build standalone networks rather than deploying on existing infrastructure.

The outcome of this competition will have significant implications for Solana's long-term value proposition. If the network can position itself as the default substrate for financial services that don't require fully custom infrastructure, the addressable market expands dramatically. If, however, each major financial services firm builds proprietary infrastructure, Solana's value proposition narrows to serving the long-tail of smaller applications.

The Perception Game

Perhaps the most actionable insight from the conversation concerned the importance of perception in driving ecosystem growth. Technical improvements and on-chain metrics matter, but they must be translated into narrative momentum that attracts founders, capital, and users.

"I frankly do think we're at a point where, to your point, Jack, it's a lot of kind of perception," Potts acknowledged. "I think perception is the thing to focus on right now. And maybe that's unpopular to say because technically-minded people like us think that's kind of fugazi. But it's just the reality of capital formation."

Solana's perception appears to have reached what Potts characterized as a "local low"—not as severe as the post-FTX nadir, but clearly below recent highs in terms of founder interest and capital flows. The good news is that perception can shift rapidly, particularly with institutional catalysts like DAT launches and ETF approvals.

The appearance of Solana Foundation President Lily Liu on CNBC, articulating a vision of Solana as infrastructure for "internet capital markets" with a total addressable market of 5.5 billion potential users, suggests the ecosystem is beginning to prioritize this narrative work. Liu's positioning as a potential Michael Saylor equivalent for Solana—someone who can communicate the network's value proposition to traditional finance audiences—may prove strategically important.

Solana's Infrastructure Renaissance

While the conversation focused heavily on institutional catalysts and market narratives, Potts repeatedly emphasized the substantive infrastructure improvements occurring across the Solana ecosystem. The Anza team's development velocity, protocol-level upgrades, and application-layer innovations collectively strengthen Solana's competitive position.

"They've really kicked into gear and I've been impressed with frankly just their velocity, their communications, and just probably their coordination across the ecosystem at large," Potts said of Anza and other core development teams.

The imminent launch of Alpenglow, Solana's new consensus mechanism developed by researchers who initially published papers critical of the network's existing architecture, represents perhaps the most significant technical upgrade on the horizon. This pattern—where external critics are invited to become core contributors—exemplifies the intellectual humility that has characterized Solana's development culture.

The Volume Versus Liquidity Trade-Off

An interesting strategic distinction emerged in the conversation between Ethereum's apparent positioning around deep liquidity and Solana's potential positioning around high-velocity activity. If Ethereum's value proposition centers on being the settlement layer for large, institutional transactions, Solana's advantage may lie in processing higher volumes of smaller transactions at lower cost.

"We don't maybe need hundreds of billions of stablecoin liquidity if we're able to do things faster and cheaper," Potts argued. "We can use a smaller capital base and compound economic activity at a much higher velocity than our competition."

This framing suggests that Solana's success doesn't require beating Ethereum at its own game of attracting the largest capital pools. Instead, success might look like becoming the default infrastructure for high-frequency, lower-value transactions—payments, micropayments, social applications, and the long tail of economic activity that doesn't justify Ethereum's higher transaction costs.

The Perpetuals Opportunity

One specific vertical that emerged as a potential growth area for Solana concerns perpetual futures trading. While Hyperliquid has captured significant market share in this category, Potts suggested the market views this as an opportunity rather than a foregone conclusion.

"For one reason or another, Drift, which I think was the kind of chosen one for Solana perps, has not captured nearly as much market share as Hyperliquid has," the host noted. "And I think a lot of folks are seeing that as just an opportunity, a gap in the market to exploit, similarly to what we saw with DATs months ago."

The anticipation of Alpenglow's performance improvements makes perpetuals particularly interesting, as low latency and high throughput become more important for these trading applications. Multiple teams are reportedly exploring Solana-based perpetuals solutions, suggesting the competitive dynamics in this space may shift significantly once the network's technical capabilities improve.

Real-World Adoption: Beyond the Speculation

While much of the DAT and institutional narrative concerns sophisticated financial engineering, Potts also emphasized the genuine real-world adoption occurring at the grassroots level. References to Latin American supermarkets pricing goods in Tether illustrated the concrete utility that stablecoins provide to populations experiencing currency instability.

"You can see pictures of Latin American supermarkets where everything is priced in Tether because people just want to convert their paycheck into dollars to escape inflation," the host observed. "That stuff is absolutely real and it's happening."

This ground-level adoption provides a foundation of genuine utility that can persist through market cycles. Unlike purely speculative activity, which ebbs and flows with price action, payment use cases create durable demand for blockchain infrastructure that transcends market sentiment.

The Long-Term Vision: Internet Capital Markets

Lily Liu's framing of Solana as infrastructure for "internet capital markets" provides a compelling long-term vision that could guide ecosystem development and attract aligned founders and capital. The concept positions Solana not as a competitor to traditional financial infrastructure but as an expansion of financial system access to the 5.5 billion people with internet connectivity.

This framing has strategic advantages. It avoids direct confrontation with established financial institutions, instead proposing to serve markets they have historically ignored. It aligns with the stablecoin narrative by emphasizing global accessibility. And it connects to the high-velocity, lower-cost transaction thesis that differentiates Solana from competitors focused on institutional settlement.

The challenge lies in operationalizing this vision—identifying specific product categories and user acquisition strategies that can demonstrate progress against this expansive goal.

Bitcoin's Proof of Concept

When challenged on whether crypto has produced genuine capital formation or merely speculative trading, Potts pointed to Bitcoin's evolution as definitive proof of concept. The network began as an experiment in distributed computing and has evolved into what he termed "pristine collateral" recognized by traditional financial institutions.

"Bitcoin is legitimately real bona fide collateral now," Potts stated. "And the question I think anyone's asking themselves is, does this get to parity with gold?"

This trajectory from experimental network to recognized asset class provides a template for understanding how other blockchain networks might achieve similar legitimacy over extended time horizons. The path is measured in decades, not quarters, requiring patience that contrasts sharply with crypto market participants' typical time horizons.

The Wisdom of Taking the Long View

Throughout the conversation, Potts consistently advocated for longer time horizons than typically animate crypto market discourse. While acknowledging the venture-like volatility inherent in cryptocurrency markets, he emphasized the compounding growth that becomes visible when viewed over years rather than weeks.

"Everyone asked me, 'What's your hot take of the summer?' I'm like, man, we're just still so early," Potts observed. "Like everyone is talking about, oh, we're in the seventh or eighth inning of DATs, it's going to look like this cycle and we're cooked. It's like, what are you talking about?"

The venture framing is instructive: this is effectively the venture capital industry with real-time price feeds. That characterization helps explain both the volatility and the outsized returns that sometimes characterize the space. Venture portfolios don't generate returns on every position, but the portfolio-level outcomes can be transformational.

What Comes Next

The near-term catalysts for Solana appear concentrated around institutional product launches and potential Federal Reserve rate cuts. The September FOMC meeting could provide the macroeconomic backdrop that allows risk assets to rally, while DAT and ETF launches provide Solana-specific momentum.

Beyond these immediate catalysts, the trajectory depends on execution across multiple dimensions: continued infrastructure development, successful narrative articulation to traditional finance audiences, and founder attraction to build the applications that will ultimately drive on-chain activity.

Potts's overall assessment was cautiously optimistic. The building that has occurred during the current market lull has positioned Solana to capture value when conditions improve. The institutional infrastructure is emerging. The narratives are being refined. What remains is for the market to recognize what observers close to the ecosystem have been watching develop.

For market participants, the takeaway is to look beyond short-term sentiment indicators toward the structural changes that typically precede major moves. Twitter sentiment may be neutral to negative, but the capital formation machinery is being assembled. By the time sentiment catches up, the opportunity may have significantly compressed.

Facts + Figures

• Ethereum DATs have raised approximately $15 billion to date, with roughly $30 billion additional in Ethereum ETFs, creating approximately $45 billion in institutional demand that has corresponded with roughly a doubling of Ethereum's market cap and $300 billion in net market value creation.

• Solana DATs currently hold approximately $2.5 billion in cash, with ETFs yet to launch in any material fashion.

• Applying Ethereum's value creation multiplier of 6-7x to potential Solana institutional flows could generate approximately $100 billion in market cap value according to Potts's back-of-napkin analysis.

• Current stablecoin supply sits around $270-280 billion, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent projecting potential growth to $4 trillion.

• Bitcoin currently trades above $100,000 and Ethereum approaches all-time highs, despite what participants describe as muted sentiment.

• The SOL-BTC ratio has improved over three-month time horizons, demonstrating Solana's relative strength against Bitcoin.

• September 2024 was a down month for meme coins on Solana, but current activity exceeds year-ago levels, contrary to prevailing narrative.

• Tom Lee's SharpLink and similar entities have acquired comparable Bitcoin positions to Michael Saylor's multi-year accumulation in approximately a month and a half.

• Framework Ventures is currently operating out of its fourth fund, focusing on seed and Series A investments with lead or co-lead positions.

• The next FOMC meeting is scheduled for approximately September 16th, which could coincide with Solana DAT and ETF launch timing.

• Gold's market cap currently sits around $27 trillion, representing a potential ceiling for Bitcoin's store-of-value thesis.

• Solana Foundation President Lily Liu appeared on CNBC framing Solana's total addressable market as 5.5 billion people with internet connections.

• Framework Ventures' Solana investments include Jito and DFlow among others.

• Potts has been at Framework Ventures for approximately four and a half years.

Questions Answered

What is driving the current perception that Solana has lost momentum despite strong on-chain metrics?

The perception of declining momentum appears disconnected from actual on-chain activity, which remains robust with meme coin activity exceeding year-ago levels and SOL-BTC ratios improving. According to Potts, this represents a "local low" in perception rather than any fundamental deterioration. Price action, which hasn't been poor but also hasn't captured the explosive gains of peak mania, combines with social media narratives to create an impression of stagnation. Meanwhile, infrastructure development has actually accelerated, with teams like Anza increasing their development velocity and ecosystem coordination. This gap between perception and reality may represent an opportunity for informed market participants.

How significant could Solana DATs and ETFs be as catalysts for price appreciation?

The potential impact is substantial based on Ethereum precedent. Ethereum's approximately $45 billion in institutional flows through DATs and ETFs has corresponded with roughly doubling market cap and $300 billion in value creation—a 6-7x multiplier on invested capital. Applying similar math to Solana, with $2.5 billion already in DATs and ETFs yet to launch materially, Potts projects potential for approximately $100 billion in market cap creation. The timing around potential Federal Reserve rate cuts in mid-September could amplify this effect. Importantly, the velocity of capital deployment has accelerated dramatically, with new entrants achieving in weeks what earlier market participants took years to accomplish.

Why does Potts advocate for Jito Sol over custom liquid staking tokens for Solana DATs?

Custom LSTs primarily capture staking emissions, which will decline as Solana's inflationary schedule continues its taper. Jito Sol, by contrast, captures not only emissions but also priority fees and MEV activity—organic on-chain economic activity that should increase as Solana usage grows. For DAT operators who are genuinely bullish on Solana's future, positioning for on-chain activity growth through Jito Sol creates superior long-term value accrual per share. Additionally, Jito Sol has existing liquidity, custodial support, compliance infrastructure, and integration across Solana DeFi—advantages that custom LSTs with minimal liquidity cannot match.

What makes stablecoins the foundation of "DeFi 2.0" as Potts describes it?

Stablecoins have evolved from simple trading instruments into foundational infrastructure for a new financial system. They enable global distribution from day one without the state-by-state or country-by-country licensing that traditional fintech requires. The current regulatory clarity, particularly following the Trump administration's approach, has removed the career risk and legal ambiguity that previously deterred traditional finance professionals. Additionally, stablecoins serve a strategic national interest by creating distributed, non-politicized demand for U.S. Treasury securities. The $270+ billion in stablecoin liquidity seeking yield provides the capital base for entirely new business models that collapse legacy banking software and financing into unified on-chain systems.

How should Solana differentiate itself from Ethereum in the institutional narrative?

While Ethereum appears positioned around deep liquidity and institutional settlement, Solana's advantages lie in processing higher volumes at lower cost. Rather than competing for the largest capital pools, Solana can win the "volume game" by compounding economic activity at higher velocity on a smaller capital base. The framing of "internet capital markets" with 5.5 billion potential users positions Solana as expanding financial access rather than competing directly with established infrastructure. Specific metrics and narratives—equivalent to Tom Lee's stablecoin focus for Ethereum—remain to be firmly established for Solana, representing both a challenge and an opportunity for ecosystem leaders.

What should market participants make of major financial firms building their own blockchains?

While Robinhood, Circle, Stripe, and Google Cloud have all announced blockchain initiatives, Potts argues the sample size is too small to draw definitive conclusions about institutional preferences. The "Layer 1 premium" in token valuations has compressed, reducing one incentive for custom infrastructure. Decisions about build-versus-deploy involve factors including compliance requirements, branding, personnel, and perception that vary by firm. The outcome will depend on whether custom infrastructure provides sufficient advantages to justify the cost and complexity versus deploying on established networks like Solana. The next several thousand institutional blockchain decisions will be more informative than the first several.

Why has Crypto Twitter become an unreliable indicator of market movements?

Several prominent examples illustrate the disconnect between Twitter sentiment and actual capital flows. The Circle IPO saw near-universal Twitter skepticism about the business model and revenue-sharing arrangements with Coinbase, yet the offering succeeded dramatically. Potts struggled to identify any major call that Crypto Twitter has gotten right during the current cycle. The platform has become increasingly disconnected from the sophisticated institutional analysis that drives large capital allocations. Market participants who rely primarily on social media for investment signals may be systematically misinformed about where capital is actually flowing.

What does the perpetuals opportunity look like on Solana?

Hyperliquid has captured significant market share in perpetual futures trading, but many view this as a gap in the market rather than a foregone conclusion. Drift, the expected Solana leader in perps, has not achieved comparable market share. Multiple teams are reportedly exploring Solana-based perpetuals solutions, and the anticipated performance improvements from Alpenglow make the timing potentially favorable. The pattern resembles the early DAT landscape where numerous teams competed to establish positioning. Whether any Solana-based competitor can unseat Hyperliquid remains uncertain, but the competitive dynamics ensure significant innovation and effort will be directed at this opportunity.