The Future Direction of SOL

The Solana Accelerate conference has recently raised four major unresolved issues: the slow promotion progress of the Firedancer client; a certain trading platform frequently demonstrating support for Solana, which is expected to become its main trading venue; Solana Mobile launching the SKR token, raising compliance concerns; and an increased number of on-site statements questioning Trump, which may impact the political prospects of the crypto industry.

Last week, I spent most of my time shuttling between various conference venues and related events in New York, attending the Solana Accelerate conference. Large conferences like this usually release a wealth of information, and Accelerate certainly lived up to expectations, bringing important updates on various aspects including Solana’s core infrastructure, the Solana phone project, and tokenized stocks.

As I said before, change is quietly happening. The market is becoming increasingly competitive, and some of the once-highly regarded Solana ecosystems are starting to eclipse. To get a more complete picture of these potential changes, here are four of my biggest concerns since Accelerate:

Firedancer Actual Progress

Jump released Frankendancer last September, which is a “semi-finished” version of Firedancer, making certain improvements to the performance of the Solana client. Earlier this year, it started supporting Jito bundles, allowing validators to perform MEV operations more efficiently.

Currently, Frankendancer accounts for only 6% of the total staked amount on Solana (an increase of about 1% from last week). This Solana client project, developed completely from scratch, has been promoted for many years, but so far, most validators seem not to have adopted it.

Some participants privately revealed to me that Jump and Solana may have overhyped Firedancer too early, and perhaps developing and launching it more quietly would be more effective.

The key driving force behind Frankendancer may come from financial incentives: its development team announced a staking delegation plan during the conference, similar to the model of the Solana Foundation.

Is a certain trading platform becoming the preferred exchange for the Solana ecosystem?

A major announcement from the Accelerate conference is that a trading platform has launched xStocks—a tokenized stock product that includes well-known companies like Apple, Tesla, and NVIDIA, which will be traded on Solana in the future.

This provides a new avenue for global investors to invest in U.S. stocks, but what is even more striking is the platform’s choice to launch this product on Solana. Considering that the platform itself also has Layer 2 blockchain technology, it stands to reason that it should prioritize the use of its own products. However, I speculate that they see great business potential in the Solana ecosystem.

As a US-based platform that has long been in the shadow of another mainstream exchange, the exchange may have noticed that its competitors don’t have a good relationship with the Solana community — for example, competitors tend to direct users to their blockchain products.

Solana is currently one of the most active blockchain ecosystems, making it the trading platform of choice for Solana investors, which could be an attractive business opportunity for the exchange. In recent months, they’ve reinstated staking for U.S. users, put some of their money into Solana’s treasury assets, and now launched tokenized shares on Solana, and it’s clear that they’re getting closer together.

Strategic Thinking Behind SKR Token

The mobile device project Solana Mobile, supported by Solana Labs, announced three major initiatives at the Accelerate conference:

a) Seeker mobile phone will start shipping in August;

b) A decentralized architecture will be adopted to challenge the market position of Android and iOS;

c) Tokens will be issued, code SKR.

The news of the token release came as a surprise to me. After all, Solana Labs has an office in New York, so it should be extra cautious about compliance issues — and issuing a new token could easily lead to regulatory headaches. If you think back to the turmoil that arose after the SEC characterized SOL as a security, you can understand the risks.

I speculate that Solana Labs (which is still incubating the Solana Mobile project) believes that the current regulatory environment has become more friendly, potentially allowing SKR to avoid excessive regulatory pressure. They are also aware that the market popularity of the previous generation Solana phone largely benefited from the token incentive mechanism.

As Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has always emphasized, breaking the duopoly of the App Store is no easy task. Perhaps SKR can play a key role in this strategy.

Is the relationship between Trump and the crypto community starting to show cracks?

During the Accelerate conference, the members of the newly established Solana Policy Institute noticeably increased their visibility—they are trying to expand Solana’s influence in the political sphere. On this point, I noticed an interesting dynamic related to politics.

A former media reporter posted on social media last week: “A member of parliament stated at the Accelerate event, ‘We should not sell the channels that lead to Congress or the White House,’ and the audience erupted in applause.”

She also added: “The audience’s reaction surprised me—recently at a cryptocurrency conference, I rarely saw anyone expressing dissatisfaction with Trump.”

However, just last week, Trump held a dinner for his Solana MEME coin holders, sparking ethical controversy. Congress is currently advancing legislation on stablecoins and crypto market structure, and if the Democrats turn against the crypto industry due to Trump’s “profit-seeking” actions, it will adversely affect the entire ecosystem.

Nevertheless, the SEC during Trump’s administration did withdraw several lawsuits against cryptocurrency companies. Considering his recent series of supportive statements regarding cryptocurrencies, this political-business relationship is likely to continue for some time.