Solana August 2025 Update

Institutional Flows: DATCOs and ETFs

We believe SOL is poised for outperformance into year-end on the back of strong structural TradFi flows, driven by (1) SOL-focused DATCOs, (2) a likely October ETF approval, and (3) a strong fundamental growth story. Solana’s “decentralized Nasdaq” or “Internet Capital Markets” vision will likely resonate with TradFi, especially since it is the only legitimate competitor to Ethereum that will have access to TradFi flows.

We published a flashnote last week diving deep into the topic, which we recommend reading to learn more. Given we are firmly in a flows-based market, we provided a scenario analysis (bear, base, bull) regarding the incremental buying pressure we could expect from DATCOs & ETFs going into year-end.

Network Health

SIMD 326: Alpenglow

A validator signaling vote for SIMD 326 took place between epochs 840 (starting August 27) and epoch 842 (ending September 2), with a preliminary stake participation rate of 51% as of writing. We should note that we dove deep into SIMD 326 (i.e., the new Alpenglow consensus protocol) in May’s monthly update. SIMD 326 will pass, with ~99% of non-abstaining votes in favor.