jakiro
Author: cole
In the crypto world,The flow of capital is always the most honest language.While retail investors are still crazy about the next hundred times MeMe coin, a deeper and stronger undercurrent of capital is quietly changing the market pattern.This power comes from the top investment institutions on Wall Street—Those “smart money” that manage trillions of funds and are known for their calmness and rationality.
And their new favorite is Solana (SOL).
This is not another “Ethereum killer” cliché, nor is it a brief speculative rave.This is a carefully planned strategic rotation, a well-thought-out asset re-allocation carried out by institutional investors as the crypto market becomes increasingly mature.
01Four major iron certificates for institution entry
To prove that a capital rotation occurs, the most powerful way is to show the flow of real money:
1)ETP funds continue to “invigorate” with net inflows for up to 21 weeks
According to a report released in September 2025 by authoritative digital asset management company CoinShares,Investment products focused on Solana have recorded net capital inflows for the 21st week in a row.The total cumulative net inflows of these products has beenUp to $1.16 billion.For an emerging high-growth asset, this stable buying pressure that lasts for several months is the most powerful proof of the long-term optimism of institutional investors.
This ability to “give money” is global.In Canada, the asset management scale (AUM) issued by 3iQ has exceeded CAD 300 million, becoming the dominant market.In Europe, well-known publishers such as VanEck and 21Shares have also laid out a variety of Solana ETP products.Some of them even include the pledge interest generation function, providing institutions with convenient ways to obtain passive benefits..
2)ARK Invest’s initiative, open position adjustment
If the continuous inflow of ETP represents a general sentiment in the market, then the public adjustment of top-level active management funds reveals the strategic intentions of cutting-edge investors.
In April 2025, ARK’s funds were systematically selling their share of Bitcoin ETFs, instead buying Canada’s 3iQ Solana Staking ETF (SOLQ).In just two trading days, ARK spent more than US$10 million and purchased nearly 1 million shares of SOLQ.
This is by no means a simple asset rebalancing, but an active decision based on clear investment logic.ARK is not only optimistic about Solana’s growth potential, but also valued its “interest-generating” attribute that can generate pledge income.In addition, ARK also entrusted the Solana validator business of its fund to professional SOL Strategies with a background in listed companies.thisIt shows that it has been deeply involved in the actual operation of maintaining Solana’s network security and stable operation, rather than just a passive financial investor.
3)“Solana Edition MicroStrategy” Rise, a New Narrative of Corporate Finance
Do you remember that MicroStrategy has set a precedent for “bitcoding of corporate treasury” by continuously buying and holding Bitcoin?Now, the same story is happening in Solana.
In September 2025, publicly listed company Forward Industries announced a $1.6 billion SOL investment plan as part of its strategic treasury diversification, and the plan is backed by top crypto venture capital firms such as Multicoin Capital, Galaxy Digital and Jump Crypto.
These companies not only buy SOL, but also generate profits through pledge, thereby effectively locking a large number of tokens from the circulation market.On-chain data shows that as of September 2025, at least 17 institutional entities had held more than 11.73 million SOLs, with a total value of US$2.9 billion, accounting for nearly 2.04% of the circulating supply.
4)The final countdown before the US spot ETF is detonated
If the above evidence represents the vanguard of “smart money”,SoUSAThe approval of the spot Solana ETF will be a “general attack signal” that opens the capital gate of mainstream Wall Street.
Currently, Wall Street giants including VanEck, Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity and Grayscale have submitted applications for spot Solana ETFs to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).Despite the SEC’s repeated delays in decision making, market analysts generally predict that the possibility of approval by the end of 2025 is extremely high.
Strong expectations for this incident have begun to affect market behavior.Even after the news of the SEC’s announcement of a delay in the decision, SOL’s price still showed strong resilience, which shows investors’ confidence in the final result.
These four major evidences are linked together and together depict a clear picture:Institutional capital is systematically and continuously flowing into the Solana ecosystem through various channels such as ETP, active funds, and corporate treasury..
Once the “boot” of the US spot ETF is landed, this capital feast will officially reach its climax.
02Why Solana?
The flow of capital is never for no reason.The reason why Wall Street’s “smart money” chose Solana is because it has shown unique and irreplaceable advantages in terms of technical architecture, ecological vitality and market trends.
Advantage 1: Performance Monster – The ultimate experience of a single-body architecture
Imagine one is a super highway with constant traffic and 65 lanes, and the other is a city road network that needs to be connected through countless toll stations and overpasses.This is the fundamental architecture difference between Solana and many other blockchains.
Solana adopts a “monopoly” architecture, committed to achieving the ultimate speed and throughput at the single blockchain level.It realizes parallel processing of transactions through a unique “Proof of History” consensus mechanism, just like the multi-lane super highway.This brings amazing performance data:
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Ultra-high throughput:The theoretical peak exceeds 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), and the daily stable operation is between 3,000-5,000 TPS.
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Lightning speed:The final confirmation time of the transaction is less than 3 seconds and is almost instantly completed.
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Extremely low cost:The average fee per transaction is only about $0.00025, which is negligible.
For application scenarios that require handling massive, high-frequency, low-value transactions—such as payments, gaming, social and the Internet of Things—Solana’s architecture provides an unparalleled user and developer experience.As the Grayscale Research report points out, Solana achieves high performance at a single level, avoiding the “liquidity fragmentation and more cumbersome user experience” brought by other multi-layer solutions.This architectural simplicity and efficiency are the technical cornerstone of its attractiveness.
Advantage 2: Ecological gravity – seize the three high-growth tracks
If excellent performance is Solana’s “hardware”, then the booming ecological application is its “software”.With its technological advantages, Solana has established an absolute leadership position on three emerging tracks with great growth potential.
1)DePIN
DePIN is known as the next trillion-level track, and it aims to use blockchain to inspire users to build and share the real world infrastructure.(such as wireless network, map data, energy network, etc.).Such applications require processing millions of micropayments and are extremely demanding on the performance and cost of the network.Solana is one of the few public chains that can meet this need.Therefore, leading projects in this field, such as Helium (decentralized 5G network), Hivemapper (decentralized map) and Render (decentralized GPU rendering), have been moved to or directly built on Solana, creating a market value of more than $10 billion.
2)DeFi
Decentralized Exchange (DEX) on Solana shows amazing capital efficiency.Data shows thatDEX trading volume on Solana often accounts for the vast majority of the global total, sometimes even exceeding 80% between the end of 2024 and early 2025.This means that every dollar locked in the Solana DeFi ecosystem generates more economic activity than on other chains, a key indicator of the health and vitality of a financial ecosystem.
Although the vast majority of trading volume is contributed by MeMe, the active power of the Solana chain under the MeMe supercycle cannot be denied.
3)Pay
When traditional financial giants choose a blockchain to build their future payment network, this is itself the most powerful endorsement.Two major giants in the payments sector—Visa and PayPal—have chosen to launch their stablecoins and payment projects on Solana,It is precisely because of its advantage in handling large-scale transactions and low-cost.
03Wall Street’s Investment Logic: Solana’s Valuation Art
After understanding Solana’s technological and ecological advantages, we also need to take the investor’s perspective and see how they evaluate the value of Solana and incorporate it into their portfolio.
1)The temptation of high beta values
For institutional investors pursuing excess returns, one of Solana’s most attractive quantitative arguments is its relatively small market capitalization.As of the third quarter of 2025, Solana’s market capitalization was approximately $119.4 billion, while Bitcoin was as high as $2.2 trillion.
Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, proposed a wonderful “capital amplification” theory:Due to this huge scale difference, the same capital inflow will have a much greater impact on Solana prices than Bitcoin.He calculated that a $1.6 billion SOL purchase may have a market influence equivalent to a $33 billion BTC purchase.
This means that Solana is a high beta asset.In a bull market, when the entire crypto market is boosted by capital inflows, allocating some of the Solana positions is expected to receive returns far exceeding the market average..This is extremely tempting for fund managers who pursue performance.
2)The charm of “interest-generating assets”
In a global macro environment with low interest rates or even negative interest rates, “interest-generating assets” that can generate stable cash flow are highly sought after.Solana provides holders with an attractive pledge yield through its Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism.
Currently, Solana’s annualized yield on native pledge is about 7.16%.For institutions that hold SOL for a long time, this means that in addition to the potential of capital appreciation, they can also obtain a considerable “interest” income denominated in SOL.This is the important reason why ARK Invest chose to buy SOLQ ETFs with pledge function rather than ordinary ETFs.This dual attribute of “asset + income” greatly enhances Solana’s attractiveness as a long-term investment target.
3)“Nasdaq of digital assets”
Wall Street likes simple, clear and imaginative stories.Solana happens to provide a perfect narrative:It is not about becoming the “gold” of the digital world (like Bitcoin), nor is it about becoming the “settlement layer” of global finance, but about becoming the “Nasdaq” of the on-chain consumer economy.
This positioning is very accurate.Nasdaq is a gathering place for high-tech and high-growth companies around the world.With its high performance, low cost and excellent user experience, Solana is becoming the preferred platform for all consumer-oriented, high-frequency interactive on-chain applications (such as gaming, social, payment, and DePIN).This story tells investors that investing in Solana is to invest in the entrance to the next billion users into Web3, which is to invest in the future of the entire chain consumer economy.
4)“Made in the United States” label
In an era of increasing emphasis on technological sovereignty and supply chain security, the “nationality” of a project has also begun to become part of institutional considerations.Solana has a potential advantage in this regard that has not yet been fully recognized by the market:It is a “Made in the United States” blockchain.
Solana Labs is a U.S.-based company founded by former top engineers at Qualcomm.Its ecosystem is closely related to the top VCs in the United States (such as Multicoin, Jump, Galaxy) and institutions.As the new U.S. administration shows an increasingly pro-crypto stance and emphasizes retaining technological innovation at home,Solana’s “local” identity may bring unexpected regulatory and political downturns.This is undoubtedly an important plus for institutional capital seeking long-term certainty.
04summary
The rotation of institutional capital to Solana not only changes Solana’s own destiny, but also profoundly affects the future pattern of the entire crypto market.
Of course, the road to the future has never been smooth sailing.Solana also faces its own challenges.Although its network stability has maintained continuous normal operation for more than 15 months since the beginning of 2024, the occasional downtime in the past is still a thorn in the hearts of investors.In addition, its high validator hardware requirements also bring about ongoing discussions about the degree of network centralization.
However, judging by Wall Street’s actions, these risks seem to have been included in pricing.What they see,yesAn ecosystem that is constantly iterating in adversity and becoming increasingly powerful,A future giant that has found a clear product market fit and is being systematically laid out by “smart money”.
The conclusion is simple:When Wall Street starts to take it seriously, the rules of the game change.And this time, they are interested in Solana.
