Solana changes course: Life after the memecoin boom

Over the past year, Solana has changed significantly: developers are accelerating the base protocol, increasing throughput, while payment solutions and tokenized financial products are increasingly being launched on top of the network. Does this mean the blockchain is gradually moving beyond its image as a platform for memecoins?

Until recently, Solana's growth was most often associated with retail speculation, DEXs, and memecoins. That part of the ecosystem has not disappeared, but at the same time, the network is being reshaped for a broader range of use cases, from payments to tokenized stock trading and settlements between financial companies.

Solana is simultaneously speeding up the network itself and expanding the range of tasks for which it is used. Its infrastructure is increasingly being adopted by companies that have no need for the SOL token itself or memecoin trading.

The network and the push for speed

In 2026, Solana received one of its largest series of technical upgrades in recent years. In July, the block limit was raised by 66%, from 60 million to 100 million compute units.

This increased the amount of computation the network can process within a single block and provided additional throughput capacity for trading and payments.

At the same time, developers began reducing slot times—the period during which a validator produces the next block. The target was previously around 400 milliseconds, while the mainnet reached 250 milliseconds in September. The ultimate goal of the current upgrade cycle is around 200 milliseconds.

The maximum size of a single transaction was also increased from 1,232 to 4,096 bytes, while data storage costs began to be gradually reduced by 90%.

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The next major upgrade will be Alpenglow, a new consensus mechanism designed to replace the existing TowerBFT.

Currently, final block confirmation takes around 12.8 seconds, while Alpenglow targets approximately 150 milliseconds. This would reduce transaction finality time by almost two orders of magnitude.

Meanwhile, the network's long-standing stability problem has become far less pronounced. According to Solana's official statistics, the mainnet recorded 100% uptime in July, August, and September 2026. By comparison, several years ago, prolonged network outages were regularly cited as one of Solana's biggest weaknesses.

Memecoins lose their role as the foundation

The push for greater speed is not happening on an idle network. Solana remains one of the largest hubs for decentralized trading, while automated strategies, arbitrage, and memecoins generate enormous transaction volumes.

According to data aggregators, trading volume on Solana decentralized exchanges reached tens of billions of dollars in September. However, estimates vary significantly between services depending on which programs and transaction types they include.

Record transaction figures, therefore, cannot be interpreted directly as growth in user numbers: a significant share of activity is generated by bots, market makers, and automated applications.

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Memecoins still account for a significant share of trading, but other segments are growing alongside them, from stablecoins to digital versions of traditional assets. This is already changing the structure of activity on the network.

Tokenization and payments move to the forefront

By the end of September, the value of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) on Solana exceeded $4.5 billion, excluding stablecoins. The ecosystem already hosts products from BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Apollo, Hamilton Lane, WisdomTree, State Street, and other traditional financial companies.

Tokenized stocks are developing as a separate segment. For example, xStocks surpassed $6 billion in cumulative trading volume on Solana by mid-September, while Raydium alone processed more than $2 billion in such assets during the third quarter.

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A similar shift is taking place at the level of institutional partnerships.

During the summer, SBI Holdings and the Solana Foundation announced plans to develop infrastructure in Japan for tokenized bonds, funds, stablecoins, and cross-border settlements. In the fall, Solana was connected to Project Harmonia, which links tokenized funds with the infrastructure of Allfunds, one of the world's largest investment fund distribution platforms.

Stablecoin usage is growing in parallel. According to the Solana Foundation, the network processed more than $5 trillion in stablecoin transactions in 2026 alone, while their total supply stood at around $17 billion by the end of September.

On September 30, Open USD launched on Solana. Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa are participating in the project, with announced liquidity commitments exceeding $1 billion. The reserves are managed by BlackRock, BNY, and Lead Bank.

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More practical payment projects are also being added.

In August, MoneyGram expanded its cash-in and cash-out infrastructure through Solana, with cash deposits available in more than 25 countries and withdrawals in more than 170 countries and territories. Western Union has also linked its USDPT stablecoin to the network and launched its payment product across dozens of markets.

Solana still has work to do

It is worth noting that Solana's institutional shift is far from complete.

Several billion dollars in tokenized assets is significant for Solana itself, but remains small compared with the global stock and payments markets. Some products are also available only to a limited group of investors or are just beginning to gain traction.

DEXs, memecoins, bots, and arbitrage continue to generate enormous volumes of activity, meaning retail speculation remains an important part of the network's economy.

There are technical risks as well. Alpenglow, with its target finality of around 150 milliseconds, has yet to be fully implemented, while further reductions in slot times increase demands on validators and network infrastructure. As performance rises, it becomes increasingly important to determine whether a broad range of participants can meet those requirements without increasing concentration.

Solana is trying to preserve what made it popular among traders while proving that the same characteristics can also serve banks, payment companies, and asset managers. In recent years, the network has already gone through congestion, outages, a memecoin boom, and periods of sharply declining interest.

The focus now looks different: not simply processing more transactions, but turning speed and low costs into a competitive advantage for mainstream financial infrastructure.

If that transition succeeds, Solana may eventually be judged not only by the price of SOL or trader activity. Its success could also depend on how many payments, funds, and other financial products can operate on the network without the end user even noticing.