'Solana Is the New Wall Street': Bitwise CIO Makes Bombshell Bet on the Future of Finance

Could Wall Street's future be built on Solana? According to Matt Hougan, the chief investment officer of crypto asset management firm Bitwise, the answer is a resounding yes. He believes the network is poised to become the financial industry's platform of choice for the next wave of innovation: stablecoins and real-world asset tokenisation.

Why Bitwise Is Betting on Solana as the New 'Wall Street'

'I think Solana is the new Wall Street', said Hougan, speaking with Solana Labs' Akshay Rajan on 2 October. He explained that traditional financial players often consider Bitcoin 'very ephemeral' and 'hard to get their heads around'.

In contrast, they can clearly see what is happening in the stablecoin and tokenisation space, and they recognise that it is going to be 'enormously significant'. Hougan added that, 'Really important people are saying that stablecoins will reinvent payments and tokenisation will reinvent stock, bond, commodity, and real estate markets'.

When these institutions look for a place to invest, their attention turns to the blockchain space. Upon evaluating the options, Hougan notes, 'the speed, the throughput, the finality of Solana makes it seem extraordinarily attractive'.

Solana's Edge: Superior Speed and Staking Rewards

Hougan cited tangible improvements, such as settlement speeds increasing from 400 microseconds to 150 microseconds, saying that this kind of performance enhancement makes sense to financial experts 'because that's how they like to trade'.

This is not the first time Bitwise executives have championed Solana. Speaking with Cointelegraph at Token2049 in Singapore, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley said that Solana may gain an edge over Ethereum in the staking exchange-traded fund (ETF) market. He cited its design as more favourable for investors.

Horsley noted that Solana's unstaking period is much faster than Ethereum's, which is critical because 'ETFs need to be able to return assets on a very short time frame. So this is a huge challenge'.

The Stablecoin Race: Can Solana Challenge Ethereum's Dominance?

Despite this optimism, Solana remains a smaller player in the stablecoin arena. According to RWA.xyz, stablecoin supplies on Solana have grown to $13.9 billion, giving it a stablecoin tokenisation market share of 4.7%.

It is still a minnow compared to the industry leader, Ethereum, which has $172.5 billion in on-chain stablecoin value and a commanding market share of 59%. This figure increases to 65% when Ethereum layer-2 networks such as Arbitrum, Base, and Polygon are included.

Highlighting this dominance, Offchain Labs' Chief Strategic Officer, AJ Warner, compared the total value locked on both platforms. On Saturday, he stated, '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'.