While Solana is up just 5% over the past year, global sentiment around the altcoin is bullish due to its potential technical capabilities to outperform its main rivals in performance.
Solana’s Firedancer validator client, expected to leave testnet in 2025, is demonstrating transaction-per-second capabilities exceeding one million in test environments, a development aimed at solving core blockchain scalability challenges.
This leap in performance, designed to enhance network stability, is occurring as Solana gains attention from both government and corporate sectors.
The asset’s potential inclusion in a US digital asset stockpile and a trend of public companies converting treasury reserves to SOL point to growing confidence in the network’s technical roadmap.
Solana Firedancer validator
The Firedancer validator client, developed by Jump Crypto, addresses historical criticisms of Solana’s network stability. By introducing a C++ client alongside the original Rust-based version, the initiative aims to enhance client diversity and mitigate the risk of a single bug causing a network-wide halt.
Firedancer’s architecture uses a custom networking stack and optimized cryptography, which allows it to exceed one million transactions per second in test settings.
The hybrid version of the client, known as Frankendancer, has been live on the mainnet with early adopters since September 2024, with the full mainnet release projected for later in 2025. The successful deployment of this technology is central to attracting enterprise-grade applications that require high network reliability.
Alongside technical improvements, the Solana community should keep track of policy developments in the United States. An Executive Order signed on March 6 established a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and a separate “U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile” for non-bitcoin assets.
While the order itself does not name specific altcoins, President Donald Trump’s statement on March 3 included Solana in the broader US strategic crypto initiative. As the Federal Register outlines, any government holding of Solana would fall under the “Digital Asset Stockpile,” which is funded by assets forfeited to the US Treasury.
“The “United States Digital Asset Stockpile,” capitalized with all digital assets owned by the Department of the Treasury, other than BTC, that were finally forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings and that are not needed to satisfy requirements.”
The framework does not mandate active market purchases of SOL, but its potential inclusion provides a level of official recognition that could influence institutional perception.
Given the rise in memecoin activity on Solana and the wealth of rug pulls, the potential for government seizures of SOL has increased. The seized crypto could be added to the government’s digital asset stockpile and potentially be HODLed indefinitely.
Like the strategic Bitcoin reserve, the US government has no concrete plans to purchase any digital assets, and therefore, seizure from criminal activity is the only route to government ownership.
However, given that the SEC has declared memecoins not to be securities, law enforcement’s ability to prosecute rug pulls becomes more complicated.
Institutional adoption of Solana
This institutional narrative is strengthened by activity in the corporate sector. In late May, SOL Strategies, a publicly traded company, announced it had fully divested its Bitcoin position to focus its treasury exclusively on Solana, holding approximately CAD $100 million in SOL.
The company also filed a preliminary base shelf prospectus to potentially raise up to $1 billion for future investments in the Solana ecosystem. Leah Wald, CEO of SOL Strategies, stated the company is “all in on Solana,” aligning its treasury with validator growth and long-term ecosystem investment.
Other firms like Classover Holdings and DeFi Development Corporation are also building substantial SOL-based treasuries, marking an emerging trend of corporate capital moving into the Solana ecosystem for primary asset holdings.
