Bitwise: Solana is about to experience explosive market growth.

Author: Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise; Translated by: Golden Finance

Over the past 18 months, the "formula" for achieving high returns in cryptocurrency has been very clear: combining a portion of ETP capital inflows with strong corporate treasury purchases can yield substantial returns.

Bitcoin followed this formula, rising from 40,000 USD in January 2024 to around 112,000 USD now. Ethereum adopted the same strategy in April 2025, and since then, its price tripled, reaching 4,500 USD.

It is not surprising that this "formula" works; it is essentially the classic law of supply and demand at play.

● Since January 11, 2024, the Bitcoin network has produced 322,681 Bitcoins, while the purchase volume of ETPs and enterprises has exceeded 1.1 million.

● Since April 15, 2025, the Ethereum network has produced 388,568 ETH, while the acquisition volume of ETP and enterprises has reached 7.4 million.

When demand exceeds supply, prices usually rise.

Why I believe SOL will become the next target?

Solana is now capable of following the above path.

Multiple issuers—including Bitwise, Grayscale, VanEck, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, Invesco/Galaxy, and Canary Capital—have submitted applications to launch a spot Solana ETP. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is scheduled to make a ruling on these applications by October 10, 2025, which means that several issuers may push for the listing of a spot Solana ETP in the fourth quarter of 2025.

At the same time, over the past weekend, three large companies—Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital—committed to injecting $1.65 billion in cash and stablecoins into a large publicly traded Solana treasury company, Forward Industries. After the transaction is completed, the new company will begin purchasing SOL, staking, and striving to achieve outsized returns.

It is worth noting that Forward Industries has appointed Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, as chairman. Multicoin is one of the earliest investors in Solana, and Samani is also one of Solana's most articulate and steadfast advocates (you can read Multicoin's latest investment thesis on Solana here). Michael Saylor has played a key role in promoting Bitcoin as the executive chairman of the Bitcoin treasury company Strategy; Tom Lee has also made similar contributions to the promotion of Ethereum as the chairman of the Ethereum treasury company BitMine. If Samani can convey the value message of Solana in the same way on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business, it will help drive the flywheel effect of investor demand.

What is the core appeal of Solana?

Of course, merely having ETPs and treasury companies does not guarantee that investors will buy in. There must be fundamental reasons to support investors' interest in these tools. A typical reason for optimism is: although the Ethereum ETF was approved in June 2024, it wasn't until April 2025, as interest in stablecoins grew in the market, that investors truly began to focus on the top blockchain in the stablecoin space, and Ethereum really "ignited" the market.

So, what is the core appeal of Solana?

Solana is a competitor to Ethereum, and it is a programmable blockchain that supports various scenarios such as stablecoins, tokenized assets, and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. The biggest highlight of Solana is its ability to process a transaction volume far higher than Ethereum, while keeping transaction costs extremely low (less than $0.01 per transaction) and achieving fast final confirmation speeds. In fact, this blockchain has recently implemented a significant technical upgrade proposal that reduces the final confirmation time from about 12 seconds to 150 milliseconds—speed comparable to "the blink of an eye." After the upgrade goes live, Solana will rank among the fastest blockchains in the world.

The reason Solana can achieve this performance lies in its fundamentally different technical design compared to Ethereum—it does not rely on Layer 2 networks, which also makes the blockchain simpler and more user-friendly for users.

Critics argue that there is a key trade-off behind Solana's high performance: it is less decentralized and its network stability is more fragile.

Despite this, Solana has successfully attracted a large number of users. In programmable blockchains, Solana ranks third in stablecoin liquidity (only behind Ethereum and Tron), and fourth in the scale of tokenized assets. Its growth momentum is rapid: since the beginning of this year, the Assets Under Management (AUM) of tokenized assets has grown by 140%. Supporters of Solana believe that among blockchains that massively support the tokenization of mainstream assets worldwide, Solana is the only one that meets the speed requirements.

A Key Difference of Solana

There is a notable significant difference between Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana: Solana has a relatively small market capitalization.

As of September 7, the market capitalization of Bitcoin is $2.22 trillion, Ethereum is $519 billion, while Solana is only $116 billion. In other words, Solana's market cap is only 1/20 of Bitcoin and less than 1/4 of Ethereum.

From the perspective of the market capitalization of blockchain, the amount of funds flowing into Solana, even if relatively small, can have a significant impact on its price. For example, the $1.6 billion SOL that Forward Industries plans to buy is equivalent to a purchasing volume of $33 billion in the Bitcoin market. However, this impact will be somewhat offset by Solana's relatively high annual inflation rate (approximately 4.3%)—while Bitcoin and Ethereum have annual inflation rates of approximately 0.8% and 0.5%, respectively.

Overall, the current layout of Solana is still attractive. My suggestion is to closely monitor Solana's developments in the coming months.