Solana is set to surpass Ethereum as the preferred network for stablecoins and asset tokenization due to its speed and instant transaction confirmation. This was stated by Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan in a conversation with Solana Foundation’s Akshay BD.
Yes it is @solana. Exciting times ahead. https://t.co/pVX1WTGfx4
— Matt Hougan (@Matt_Hougan) October 4, 2025
A New Leader for Wall Street
Hougan described Solana as the “new Wall Street,” emphasizing that traditional investors see “stablecoins” and RWA as a revolution for the markets of payments, stocks, bonds, and real estate.
“Bitcoin seems too abstract to them, but stablecoins and tokenization are what will matter greatly,” he noted.
According to Hougan, Solana’s key advantage will be its performance: transaction finalization speed reaches 400 and is moving towards 150 microseconds. This makes the network attractive to Wall Street traders accustomed to instant settlements.
Offchain Labs Strategy Director A.J. Warner offered a counterargument. He pointed out that the gap between Ethereum and Solana in terms of TVL in DeFi is about 15 times larger than between Solana and any other network.
The gap between Ethereum and Solana for DeFi TVL is about 15x larger than Solana and any other chain.
TVL is definitely not everything but I don’t think you can doubt where the best place to launch new stablecoins is.
Build within the EVM. It is the best place to get adopted… pic.twitter.com/3jMsyUuktk
— A.J. Warner (@ajwarner90) October 3, 2025
“TVL is not the only metric, but I don’t think you can doubt where the best place to launch new stablecoins is,” he noted.
According to DeFi Llama, at the time of writing, Ethereum dominates the stablecoin market with a 53.68% share ($160.8 billion), while Solana holds about 5% ($14.9 billion).
Bitwise Bets on Solana
Bitwise has previously promoted Solana. At Token2049 in Singapore, company director Hunter Horsley told Cointelegraph that the network could surpass Ethereum in the ETF segment with staking functionality due to its ability for quick asset unlocking.
The corporation already offers the Bitwise Physical Solana ETP with physical SOL storage, but interest remains modest, with only $30 million under management. Additionally, the organization awaits a decision from the SEC on a spot Solana ETF.
Alpenglow Update: Key to Solana’s Future?
According to a VanEck report dated October 3, the Alpenglow upgrade will be the largest change to Solana’s consensus since its launch. The update will reduce transaction finalization time to 150 milliseconds, simplify validator operations through off-chain voting, and lower costs via the Validator Admission Ticket system.
Increasing block capacity by 25% and launching the Firedancer client by the end of 2025 will enhance the network’s scalability and resilience. The P-token library developed by Anza will reduce computational load by 95%, while Rotor and local signature aggregation will stabilize the blockchain even with 40% of validators offline.
These improvements strengthen Solana’s position as a platform for DeFi, gaming, and tokenized assets, potentially attracting more institutional investors.
Back in May, experts from Swiss crypto bank Sygnum did not see convincing signs that Solana would surpass Ethereum in institutional preferences.