The Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, Matt Hougan, considers Solana to be the leading network on Wall Street for stablecoins and the tokenization of real-world assets, surpassing Ethereum’s long-standing position.

“I think Solana is the new Wall Street,” Hougan stated in a conversation with Akshay Rajan from Solana Labs on October 2. He remarked that the Wall Street demographic finds Bitcoin too transient and difficult to grasp.

He emphasized the apparent trend towards stablecoins and tokenization, predicting its significance by stating, “Really important people are saying that stablecoins will reinvent payments and tokenization will reinvent stock, bond, commodity, and real estate markets.”

The blockchain sector’s investment inclinations, as he noted, lean towards Solana due to its enhanced speed, transaction throughput, and finality.

Hougan mentioned that the improvement in settlement speed from 400 to 150 microseconds aligns with the trading habits of professionals.

Solana’s representation Source: Matt Hougan

Ethereum Holds the Top Spot in Stablecoins

The stablecoin value on Solana has risen to $13.9 billion, resulting in a 4.7% share in the stablecoin tokenization market, as per RWA.xyz.

In contrast, Ethereum dominates with $172.5 billion in stablecoin value on-chain, claiming 59% market share. This figure increases to 65% when including layer-2 solutions like Arbitrum, Base, and Polygon.

AJ Warner, Chief Strategic Officer at Offchain Labs, observed the total value locked in Solana and Ethereum on Twitter, stating, “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.”

Bitwise Champions Solana

This enthusiasm for Solana isn’t new from Bitwise’s leadership. Recently, Hunter Horsley noted that Solana could outpace Ethereum in the staking ETF sector, citing its more investor-friendly design.

He elaborated that Solana’s faster unstaking process gives it an edge as “ETFs need to be able to return assets on a very short time frame”.

Related: Can Solana rival Wall Street? Kyle Samani thinks so

Upcoming Decisions on Bitwise’s Solana ETF

Bitwise is preparing to launch the Bitwise Physical Solana ETP, enabling investors to gain exposure to SOL through a fully-backed structure with institutional custody. However, interest has been lackluster relative to BTC and Ethereum ETFs, holding only $30 million in assets under management, as reported by Bitwise.

A spot Solana ETF is still waiting for approval from the SEC, with a decision anticipated on October 16.

As of this writing, SOL’s price has decreased by 2% to $227 and remains 22% lower than its peak in January 2025.

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