GYENGYEN

Stablecoins on high-performance blockchain rails offer fundamental improvements to the exchange of money, allowing for the transfer of dollars at velocities and costs unrivaled by legacy rails. These improvements can pull forward economic activity and retain surplus between transacting parties, making economies more prosperous. As onchain stablecoin yields offer a premium to the risk free rate, there is an incentive for further inflows and a growing stablecoin supply. Tether holds dominant market share and exhibits supernormal margins and profits. These margins are opportunities for other competitors, which should attract new entrants in the stablecoin issuer market, and pending legislation with the GENIUS act provides the regulatory guidance and framework to do so.

The Solana validator landscape has changed drastically over the past year. The chain now has 1,332 active validators with 380.9 million SOL staked (63.9% of supply) as of February 2025. Validator revenue had diversified beyond inflationary rewards (still making up 55%) to include Jito tips (30%), priority fees (24%), and base fees (<1%), in January, especially with the increased activity on Solana. Since then, issuance has become dominant again (76%), while Jito tips (14%), priority fees (9%), and base fees (less than 1%) have reduced in share of February 2025. There has been a strong shift towards non-inflationary revenue sources, which have become more central to validator economics as priority fees and off-chain blockspace auctions gain traction. Client diversity has also improved drastically, with implementations such as Agave, Jito-Solana, and Frankendancer already in use, and upcoming clients like Firedancer and Sig expected to further strengthen resilience and reduce reliance on a single codebase.