Solana
Solana goes all-in on blockchain as a consumer payment system
The landscape of digital assets, blockchain and Web3 technologies is changing.
What was once considered theoretical or viewed with suspicion in light of scandals and volatility is now becoming increasingly practical.
“It is important to know that crypto is not limited to Bitcoin, Doge and NFTs,” Sheraz Shereresponsible for payments at Solana Foundation, told PYMNTS. “…Blockchains are truly alternative pathways for payments and financial assets.”
However, accelerating the adoption of cryptocurrencies remains an ongoing challenge – one that requires an evolution in adoption awareness, particularly among senior financial services executives.
“If you think about mainstream, we’re very early, even as far as awareness goes,” Shere said.
Indeed, even though crypto proponents possess extensive knowledge of the technology, there remains a critical need for education among leaders so that they can truly explore the practical applications and future potential of cryptocurrency in payments.
“For example, people are very excited about all these new developments. [real-time payments] systems,” Shere said. “Imagine a world [real-time payments] system that operates without a central authority. Well, we have that with stablecoins running on a network like Solana – decentralized, completely permissionless instant settlement.
“Don’t get 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 executives to understand. »
Compliance as a catalyst for crypto growth and adoption
Moving from a 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 those in the financial services industry regarding compliance and regulation, and they think 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 rails.”
These advancements enable privacy with auditability, control over which wallets can interact with assets, and the ability to perform reversible transactions or freeze and seize assets.
Compliance drives developments in the crypto industry and paves the way for innovation. Token Extensions, a native token program on Solana, represents a step forward in tokenization standards.
According to Shere, these extensions embed compliance features into the tokens, allowing for more granular control of transactions. From privacy to transfer hooks, these features enable regulated entities to tokenize their assets while meeting compliance requirements – an essential step in gaining the trust and acceptance of traditional financial institutions.
Increasing awareness and acceptance lies in solving real business problems
While awareness, acceptance and adoption are all crucial to scaling cryptocurrencies within payment ecosystems, two other critical factors will determine the success of cryptocurrencies: their ease of use and their usefulness.
“The problem is that the technology is not user-friendly,” Shere said. “Everything was designed by engineers… to be very technology-focused and not use-case or UX-focused.” »
He highlighted the need for crypto players 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 they can easily send money to anyone in a hundred countries without needing to go to a physical location or use correspondent banking services.”
The message reflects a deliberate effort to encourage businesses, including Fortune 500 companies, to adopt blockchain technology.
“The first iterations of blockchains were incredible innovations, but they weren’t designed with scalability in mind – things like 10 minute settlement times or $20 to settle a transaction – that works for the big whales that transfer money, but it doesn’t work. for retail, and it doesn’t work for merchant payments,” Shere said, noting that Solana’s ecosystem is built for speed and scalability.
By demonstrating the practical applications and scalability of blockchain, Shere explained that the Solana ecosystem seeks to position itself as a corporate innovation partner among financial institutions seeking to improve efficiency and expand their reach on the market.
“Things are moving slowly in the traditional financial services industry,” he said. “Things are moving very quickly in blockchain. As they cross paths, you may find that things start to move a little faster.
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