Blockchain
Solana is betting everything on Blockchain as a mainstream payment platform
The landscape of digital assets, blockchain and Web3 technologies is undergoing a shift.
What was once considered theoretical or viewed with suspicion in light of scandal and volatility is now increasingly moving towards practical use.
“It is important to know that cryptocurrencies are not just Bitcoin, Doge and NFTs,” Sheraz Sherepayment manager at Solana Foundation, he told PYMNTS. “…Blockchains are truly alternative binaries for payments and financial activities.”
However, there remains an ongoing challenge in accelerating cryptocurrency adoption, one that requires an evolution from awareness to adoption, particularly among senior executives in financial services.
“If you think about the mainstream, we’re very early, even on the awareness side,” Shere said.
This is because, while cryptocurrency advocates possess a deep understanding of the technology, there remains a critical need for education among executives so that they can truly embrace exploring the practical applications and future potential of cryptocurrency in payments.
“For example, people are super excited about all this new stuff [real-time payments] systems,” Shere said. “Imagine a global world [real-time payments] system that simply works without central authority. Well, we have it with stablecoins that run on a network like Solana: decentralized and completely permissionless instant settlement.
“Don’t be distracted by the noise,” he added. “There’s a lot of noise, but there are some interesting underlying technologies that are important for financial services leaders to understand.”
Compliance as a catalyst for cryptocurrency growth and adoption
The journey from theoretical understanding of crypto payments to their practical implementation as an innovative value transfer mechanism involves overcoming long-standing misconceptions about the space and endemically fragmented regulatory complexities.
“There are a lot of misconceptions among people in the financial services industry about compliance and regulation, and that they wouldn’t want to touch blockchain with a 10-foot pole,” Shere said. “And I think in the past that may have been true, but now there’s a whole new set of protocol-level controls that provide even finer control than you often have with traditional financial binaries.”
These advances enable confidentiality with auditability, control over which wallets can interact with assets, and the ability to execute reversible transactions or freeze and seize assets.
Compliance is driving developments in the cryptocurrency industry and paving the way for innovation. Token Extensions, a native token program on Solana, represents an advancement in tokenization standards.
These extensions, Shere said, embed compliance features into tokens, allowing fine-grained control over transactions. From confidentiality to transfer constraints, these capabilities allow regulated entities to tokenize assets while adhering to compliance requirements – an essential step in gaining trust and acceptance from traditional financial institutions.
Raising awareness and acceptance is about solving real business problems
While awareness, acceptance, and adoption are all crucial in driving the evolution of cryptocurrency within payments ecosystems, two other critical factors will determine cryptocurrency’s success: its usability and its utility.
“One problem was that the technology wasn’t easy to use,” Shere said. “Everything was designed by engineers… to be focused on technology and not use cases or UX.”
He highlighted the need for both crypto operators and businesses to focus on real-world use cases, such as cross-border payments, where blockchain solutions offer advantages over traditional systems.
“The end user may not even know they are using blockchain,” he said. “They just know that they can easily send money to anyone in a hundred countries without needing to travel to a physical location or use correspondent banking services.”
The message reflects a deliberate effort to engage businesses, including Fortune 500 companies, to embrace blockchain technology.
“The early iterations of blockchains were incredible innovations, but they weren’t built with scalability in mind – things like 10 minute settlement times or $20 to settle a transaction – which works for the big whales moving money, but doesn’t work for the retail and doesn’t work for merchant payments,” Shere said, noting that Solana’s ecosystem is built for speed and scalability.
Demonstrating the practical applications and scalability of blockchain, Shere explained that the Solana ecosystem seeks to position itself as a partner in business innovation among financial institutions seeking to improve efficiency and expand market reach.
“Things move slowly in the traditional financial services industry,” he said. “Things move very fast in blockchain. As they intersect, you might see things start to move a little faster.”
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