Solana’s two-year turnaround from a memecoin hub to a contender for Wall Street capital is gathering pace. Industry publication The Information reported that the blockchain’s native token, SOL, has surged 820 percent since August 2023 and that backers are working with lawyers and lobbyists to make Solana only the third cryptocurrency with a U.S.-listed exchange-traded fund, after Bitcoin and Ether. Rising on-chain activity is reinforcing that push. PancakeSwap said its Solana-based exchange surpassed US$500 million in cumulative trading volume on 21 August, while Uniswap disclosed that its cross-chain “Unichain” implementation has handled more than US$50 billion. Separately, derivatives venue Hyperliquid reported US$7 billion in trades during its first five months and claims it now processes more than 80 percent of perpetual-futures volume across decentralized exchanges. Solana Foundation executives argue that sustained volume growth, together with experiments in tokenized stocks and other traditional assets, shows the network can underpin what they call “internet capital markets”. An SEC sign-off on a Solana ETF would give the project its widest access yet to mainstream investors, though the regulator has not publicly commented on timing.