One Chain to Rule Them All: Can Solana Alone Support Wall Street's Demands?

The SEC chairman recently suggested all U.S. stocks could be on-chain within a couple of years. That's $68 trillion of assets potentially looking for a blockchain home. At Breakpoint 2025, two industry heavyweights squared off in a rapid-fire debate: Is Solana ready to become that home today, or does the network need more time to mature before handling Wall Street's full weight?

Summary

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Max Resnick from Anza, which develops the Agave client for Solana, argued forcefully that Solana is ready now. He pointed to the network achieving 100,000 transactions per second on mainnet this year—not in a white paper or testnet, but in actual production. Meanwhile, Ren from Electric Capital, a longtime Solana investor, played devil's advocate, arguing that while Solana is the leading contender for institutional adoption, the network isn't quite ready as of December 2025.

The debate cut to the heart of crypto's most ambitious promise: can a decentralized blockchain actually replace the complex web of intermediaries, clearinghouses, custodians, and settlement systems that currently power global financial markets? Max painted the current Wall Street infrastructure as hopelessly outdated—a maze of underwriters, lawyers, central depositories, custodians, sub-custodians, and transfer agents that still settles trades on a T+1 cycle. On Solana, he argued, you can issue, trade, and settle in "T+1 millisecond, not T+1 day."

Ren countered with practical concerns: NASDAQ handles millions of messages per second at peak load, and NYSE processes trillions of messages daily. Even stripping away limit orders and focusing only on settlements, Solana remains "orders of magnitude away" from matching that capacity. He also raised concerns about security audits, the tension between legal and cryptographic finality, and the laws of physics making it challenging to serve globally distributed markets from a single-leader network.

Both speakers found common ground on one crucial point: Solana is the leading blockchain for this future. The disagreement centered on timing—with Max arguing the infrastructure is ready today, and Ren suggesting full readiness might take until "our children or our children's children" see it fully realized, though 90% could happen on one chain eventually.

Key Points:

Solana's Current Technical Capabilities

Max Resnick made bold claims about Solana's readiness, citing the network's achievement of 100,000 transactions per second on mainnet this year. This wasn't a theoretical benchmark or testnet number—it was real production traffic. When issues arose during this peak load, they were fixed immediately afterward, demonstrating the network's ability to recover and improve. Max also pointed to the evolution of Solana's proprietary AMMs, which are currently doing three times the volume of Binance on SOL/USD trading pairs.

The argument extends beyond raw throughput to market structure efficiency. Max contended that traditional finance's transaction volumes are artificially inflated by outdated market designs. Central limit order books with price-time priority force participants to constantly cancel and replace orders to maintain priority—something that wouldn't be necessary in Solana's AMM-based architecture, where a single oracle update can accomplish what would require hundreds of transactions on Wall Street.

The Scale Challenge and Physical Limitations

Ren pushed back hard on the throughput numbers, noting that traditional exchanges operate at fundamentally different scales. NASDAQ alone handles millions of messages per second during peak loads, while NYSE processes trillions of messages daily. This doesn't even account for dark pools and alternative trading systems that surround major exchanges. Even if you strip away limit orders and focus solely on settlements, the gap remains substantial.

Beyond raw numbers, Ren raised the physics problem: Wall Street isn't just New York and Chicago. Global financial infrastructure spans Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, and Shanghai. Solana's single-leader network architecture creates latency challenges when serving these geographically distributed hubs. The multiple concurrent leaders feature, expected next year, would help address this—and Max teased that his talk the following day would cover this exact topic.

Security and Audit Concerns

One of Ren's most pointed criticisms addressed Solana's security profile for institutional adoption. The vast majority of Solana programs have audits done pre-deployment, which creates challenges for Wall Street institutions accustomed to rigorous ongoing oversight. It's difficult for institutions to deposit hundreds of millions of dollars into programs that might be upgraded multiple times a day without clear visibility into changes.

Ren posed a provocative challenge: before discussing onboarding Wall Street, perhaps Solana should focus on onboarding digital asset treasuries first. These are the most crypto-native public companies in existence, and even they struggle to use liquid staking tokens or deposit into protocols like Kamino. If these native players can't fully utilize the infrastructure, expecting traditional finance to leap in seems premature.

Legal Finality vs. Cryptographic Finality

A nuanced but crucial distinction emerged around the concept of finality. Legal finality in traditional markets allows for error correction and adjustments by authorized entities, with laws varying by region. Cryptographic finality—what blockchain provides—is immutable and irreversible. These two concepts are fundamentally in tension, and Ren suggested this tension will be debated in judicial systems around the world for decades to come.

This isn't merely academic. When errors occur in traditional markets, there are mechanisms for reversal and correction. Blockchain's immutability, while providing certainty, removes these safety valves. Institutional adoption may require creative solutions that bridge these two models—something the industry hasn't fully solved yet.

The Modular vs. Monolithic Debate

The conversation touched on a fundamental architectural question: should financial infrastructure be unified on one chain or distributed across specialized systems? Max argued strongly for the monolithic approach, noting that while modular designs might optimize individual components, "when you start hooking them up, that's where all the tension and all the bad stuff happens." Solana's integrated approach of issuance, trading, and settlement on one platform eliminates these integration challenges.

Ren acknowledged the economic efficiency of a unified system but pointed to practical realities. Traditional finance is already quite modular and distributed, with regional jurisdictions and varying regulatory requirements. Different regions and countries will want their own input and potentially different choices based on regulatory considerations rather than pure efficiency. He predicted that while 90% of activity might eventually consolidate on one chain, this isn't a five-to-ten-year horizon.

What Already Exists on Solana

Despite the debate about readiness, both speakers acknowledged significant progress. NASDAQ-listed securities, specifically Class A securities, are already on Solana today through providers like Superstate. This isn't theoretical—it's happening now. Max used this as evidence that regulatory clarity, one of Wall Street's three main demands alongside scale and market structure, is achievable on Solana.

The network also has active institutional-grade products in development. P token is expected early next year, which will enable even more trading capacity. Combined with ongoing Firedancer development and the upcoming multiple concurrent leaders feature, the roadmap suggests rapid improvement in capabilities that institutional players care about most.

Facts + Figures

• Solana achieved 100,000 transactions per second on mainnet in production this year, not on a testnet or in theoretical documentation

• Solana's proprietary AMMs currently process three times the volume of Binance on SOL/USD trading pairs

• NASDAQ handles millions of messages per second at peak load, while NYSE processes trillions of messages daily

• Traditional finance operates on T+1 settlement cycles, while Solana can settle in approximately T+1 millisecond

• The SEC chairman suggested all U.S. stocks could be on-chain within a couple of years, representing approximately $68 trillion in assets

• NASDAQ-listed Class A securities already exist on Solana today through Superstate

• Ren predicted 90% of financial activity could eventually consolidate on one chain, but not within a 5-10 year horizon

• P token is expected to launch on Solana in early 2026, enabling additional trading capacity

• Multiple concurrent leaders functionality is expected to ship next year, addressing geographic distribution challenges

• Many Solana programs are audited pre-deployment but may be upgraded multiple times a day, creating institutional hesitation

Top quotes

"Issued on Solana, traded on Solana, settled on Solana. T+1 millisecond, not T+1 day."

"I think we're ready today. It's a blockchain. It's permissionless. You can build whatever you want. If it doesn't have the thing that you want today, you can go and build it because it's a blockchain."

"I think probably 90% will happen on one chain, but I think that time scale is not a five to 10 year horizon. So I think that probably our children or our children's children will grow up when."

"I just see Solana everywhere. All over the world, into this one place, all the trades are happening here."

"The real world is really complicated. When you build systems within a digital realm, you can keep everything very elegant and simple. But when you are building software for the real world, the complexities of the real world gets melded into the software itself."

"Even this week, people are at Abu Dhabi Finance Week like, what is Solana? Is that like Avalanche? No. That's not like that. That's Solana. We got to educate people."

"Most of the private AMMs today, at least the way they're quoting, they just take Binance's mid and a very weak form of alpha and offer that effectively as an RFQ system."

"I still think it has the dog in it, but I think that's something that we'll see over the years to come."

"Before we talk even about onboarding Wall Street, how about we onboard the digital asset treasuries first? They're the most crypto-native public companies that we have in our market."

"If we don't ship, if we don't do the work that needs to be done, if we don't pound the pavement and get people on board... that's what could break it."

Questions Answered

Is Solana actually ready to handle Wall Street's trading volumes today?

This depends on who you ask. Max Resnick argues yes, pointing to Solana's demonstrated 100,000 TPS on mainnet and the efficiency gains from AMM-based market structures that require fewer transactions than traditional order books. He contends that Wall Street's transaction numbers are inflated by inefficient legacy systems. Ren counters that major exchanges like NASDAQ and NYSE handle millions to trillions of messages daily, and Solana remains "orders of magnitude away" from matching that capacity. The truth likely lies somewhere in between—Solana has made remarkable progress but may need features like multiple concurrent leaders and Firedancer to truly match institutional demands.

What does Wall Street actually need from a blockchain?

According to the debate, traditional finance has three core requirements: scale to handle all their trades, market structure that preserves deep liquidity and tight spreads they're accustomed to, and regulatory clarity about what's permissible. Max argued Solana already meets all three, pointing to mainnet performance, evolving AMM technology, and existing NASDAQ-listed securities already on the chain. However, Ren added implicit requirements around security audits, legal finality mechanisms, and geographic distribution that current infrastructure doesn't fully address.

Why is traditional finance's infrastructure considered problematic?

Max described the current system as a complex web of intermediaries: to issue a security, you need underwriters, lawyers filing with regulators, certificates deposited at central depositories, positions credited to custodians, sub-custodians, and beneficial owners through transfer agents maintaining registers. Trading introduces counterparty risk requiring clearinghouses for margin. Settlement happens on T+1 cycles, meaning registers are always slightly outdated and no one can know with certainty who holds a security at any given moment. Blockchain promises to collapse this entire stack into a single, transparent, near-instant system.

What are the biggest obstacles to Solana becoming the global financial infrastructure?

Several challenges emerged from the debate. First, there's the physics problem—serving globally distributed markets from a single-leader network creates latency issues for regions far from leaders. Second, the tension between legal finality and cryptographic finality remains unresolved—traditional markets need error correction mechanisms that conflict with blockchain immutability. Third, security audit practices on Solana don't match institutional expectations when programs can be upgraded frequently. Finally, there's simply an education gap—financial professionals at events like Abu Dhabi Finance Week still don't know what Solana is.

Will financial markets eventually consolidate onto one blockchain?

Ren predicted that roughly 90% of financial activity could eventually happen on one chain, but emphasized this isn't a near-term outcome. The timeline might extend to "our children or our children's children." Different regions and countries will want their own input based on regulatory considerations rather than pure efficiency. Max offered an unequivocal vision of Solana everywhere, handling all global trades in one place, but acknowledged that execution depends on continuous shipping and education efforts from the ecosystem.

How do Solana's AMMs compare to traditional market structure?

Max argued that proprietary AMMs represent a fundamental improvement over traditional central limit order books. In traditional markets, price-time priority forces participants to constantly cancel and replace orders, inflating transaction volumes. A single oracle update in an AMM-based system can accomplish what would require hundreds of transactions on Wall Street. Ren pushed back somewhat, noting that many private AMMs simply take Binance's mid-price with minimal alpha, essentially operating as RFQ systems rather than true price discovery mechanisms.

What needs to happen before major institutions can confidently use Solana?

Beyond raw throughput improvements, several developments would help: Firedancer shipping to provide client diversity and performance improvements, multiple concurrent leaders to address geographic distribution, more robust ongoing audit practices for deployed programs, and potentially novel solutions bridging legal and cryptographic finality. Ren also suggested the ecosystem should focus first on onboarding digital asset treasuries—the most crypto-native public companies—as a stepping stone before targeting traditional finance more broadly.