“The Solana ecosystem has spent the past year doubling down on a financial infrastructure, Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante told CoinDesk.”, — write: www.coindesk.com
Armani Ferrante, CEO of crypto exchange Backpack, told CoinDesk in an interview the Solana ecosystem has spent the past year doubling down on a more sober focus: financial infrastructure. After years of experimentation as the wider crypto industry focused on NFTs, games and social tokens, attention is now shifting back towards decentralized finance, trading and payments.
“People are really starting to think about blockchains as a new kind of financial infrastructure,” Ferrante, who will be speaking at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference next month, said. “It’s less about NFTs, less about random moonshot-like games, and much more about finance.”
That shift has made Solana feel dull to some outside observers, but Ferrante framed it as a sign of maturity. The network is increasingly positioning itself around high-throughput onchain trading, market structure and settlement, what some have dubbed as “internet capital markets.”
The pivot comes amid a stark divide between crypto sentiment and traditional finance. While crypto prices remain subdued and crypto-native investors remain cautious, Ferrante said institutional interest has rarely been stronger.
“If you ask anyone on Wall Street, they’ve never been more bullish,” he said, pointing to growing momentum around tokenization, stablecoins and onchain settlement.
Ferrante argued that the long-term case for Solana, and blockchains more broadly, rests on their role as neutral settlement layers. In that future, assets like stocks and derivatives move seamlessly across platforms as standardized tokens rather than sitting in siloed databases.
“A token is just a canonical, agreed-upon ledger entry for who owns something,” Ferrante said. “That concept applies everywhere.”
Crucially, Ferrante emphasized that real-world adoption will require deeper integration with regulatory frameworks, not an escape from them. As crypto moves from speculative experimentation toward embedded financial infrastructure, compliance and legal clarity become prerequisites rather than obstacles.
“What maturity actually means is the real world,” he said. “And the real world isn’t a free-for-all.”
In Ferrante’s view, Solana’s bet is that building for that reality, even at the cost of hype, will pay off as more of global finance moves on-chain.
Read more: Ethereum and Solana set the stage for 2026’s DeFi reboot
KuCoin captured a record share of centralized exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the broader crypto market.
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per monthmarking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralized exchange volumeas KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumeswhich slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly spliteach exceeding $500 billion for the year, signaling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activityreinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activityindicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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EF researcher Justin Drake says a new post-quantum team will drive wallet safety upgrades, research prizes and test networks as quantum timelines shorten.
- The Ethereum Foundation has elevated post-quantum security to a top strategic priority, forming a dedicated Post Quantum team led by Thomas Coratger with support from leanVM cryptographer Emile.
- Researcher Justin Drake said Ethereum is shifting from background research to active engineering, including biweekly developer sessions on post-quantum transactions and multi-client post-quantum consensus test networks.
- The foundation is backing new cryptography with funding and outreach, launching two $1 million prizes, planning post-quantum community events and education, and stressing that blockchains must prepare early for quantum threats despite their long-term nature.
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