Solana’s recent good news is a tech ‘validation,’ says Jupiter’s Ben Chow

If Solana aficionados have been paying any attention to recent Web3 industry headlines, they should feel some pretty good vibes by now.

Just in the last couple weeks, a series of positive stories have landed for the ecosystem. Shopify plans to integrate with Solana Pay, allowing “millions of entrepreneurs and merchants” to have access to no-fee, Web3-native payments.” Maker is looking into the possibilities of building a new DeFi lending protocol on an appchain using Solana’s SVM. And most recently, Visa is extending USDC settlements to Solana.

Zeta Markets co-founder Tristan Frizza says the good news has been a long time coming. People are “coming around” to the Solana “side of the fence,” he says, adding that it “feels validating.”

On the Lightspeed podcast (Spotify/Apple), Frizza says, “everyone’s been putting in this work over the bear market,” he says, “and it’s starting to pay off.”

“People are definitely starting to pay attention.”

Jupiter co-founder Ben Chow feels the most important message that people should recognize from recent events is that people are choosing “the value and the strength of Solana’s tech over the ‘fud’ and the narrative.”

Bridging the gap

Chow adds that he expects to see more infrastructure, business-to-business (B2B) and institutional companies considering Solana for applications. “The real pain point of needing speed and cheapness — it trumps everything,” he says.

Chow hopes the shift is a “turning point” where more payments companies choose Solana, along with other “similar use cases.”

“This is such a powerful proof point for Solana and a validation of how robust the tech is,” he says.

Hubble Protocol founder Marius Ciubotariu argues the recent news “bridges the gap from fundamentals to perceived value.”

“People that work in these companies,” he says, “they’re not going to be influenced by Twitter fud and bag-holders shilling their thesis.”

“They actually have to make business decisions for which they’ll be responsible for in the next three years and their career is built on that,” he says. “They have to make pretty good decisions that are long-term and they’re future proof.”

All the recent advancements are a “validation of what we all knew,” Ciubotariu says, tracing back to efforts to develop Solana tech over the past few years during difficult economic times. After the bad news and despair of “black swans that had to happen,” he feels “it’s up only” from here.

“Shopify and Visa will open up APIs that nobody else was able to create before,” he says. “If you want [developers] to build and to create all sorts of payment APIs,” he explains, “you need APIs from these big companies to, basically, [permit] you to access the systems.”

“This could finally make the vision — that Solana was for payments and for speed — possible.”

Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the On the Margin newsletter.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.