Author: Liang Yu
Editor: Zhao Yidan
When the clock in Hong Kong strikes October 22, 2025, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission officially approves the first Solana spot ETF, placing this international financial center once again at the forefront of global digital asset competition.
This is not just the launch of an ordinary financial product, but a new gateway for the Asian market to the Web3 world. The ETF, code-named 03460 and launched by Huaxia Fund (Hong Kong), makes Solana the third cryptocurrency to receive regulatory approval in Hong Kong, following Bitcoin and Ethereum. Even more intriguing, on the same day, the scale of real-world assets (RWA) on the Solana chain surpassed $700 million, with the number of holders skyrocketing to 92,526.
The financial clocks of the East and West are ticking at different rhythms. While the U.S. SEC continues to debate Solana's regulatory status, Hong Kong has already provided an answer through action. This is not merely a regulatory green light, but a strategic layout concerning the future discourse of finance. The product design by Huaxia Fund is deeply meaningful—three currency counters in HKD, RMB, and USD, a management fee rate of 0.99%, and a compliance framework in collaboration with the licensed institution OSL, with every detail conveying professionalism and stability to the market.
Numbers do not lie. In the past 30 days, the scale of RWA on the Solana chain has grown against the trend by 5.8%, and the number of holders has surged by 18.28%. Behind these numbers is the active performance of 94 different RWA assets on the chain, ranging from U.S. Treasury bonds to luxury goods, from private credit to artworks, forming a brand new asset network quietly.
This is not only a victory for the product but also a resonance of ideas. Western venture capital votes for technological innovation with capital, a16z's continued investment in the Jito protocol, and Jump Crypto's deep cultivation in infrastructure; Eastern capital paves the way for compliant development through institutional frameworks, with Huaxia Fund's ETF product, Temasek's discreet layout, and the close attention of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Two forces, one direction, have found a convergence point in the Solana ecosystem.
At this moment, Hong Kong is no longer just a geographical concept of a financial center but has become an important hub connecting traditional finance and the digital future. When Eastern institutional innovation meets Western technological ideals, and when regulatory green lights meet capital influx, a transformation of financial infrastructure is unfolding before our eyes. This is not the end but a new beginning—a time is beginning to be written where assets flow seamlessly and finance connects without borders.
I. Hong Kong's Financial Innovation and Institutional Dividends
The approval of the Solana spot ETF by Hong Kong reflects its systematic strategy to build a digital asset hub. Managed by Huaxia Fund (Hong Kong), this ETF sets up three currency counters with a management fee rate of 0.99%, and is expected to officially trade on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on October 27. Its custody and trading are handled by the licensed institution OSL, establishing a complete compliance framework.
The core of this breakthrough lies in the foresight and execution of Hong Kong's regulation. Looking back in history, Hong Kong began exploring a regulatory framework for virtual assets in 2018, from initial sandbox testing to a comprehensive licensing system in 2023, and then to the launch of the "Digital Asset Development Policy Declaration 2.0" in 2024, with a clear and steady regulatory evolution path. The "LEAP framework" proposed in this declaration systematically constructs a digital asset management system through four dimensions: License ensures compliance qualifications for participants, Exchange provides a safe and transparent trading environment, Access connects traditional finance with digital assets, and Product encourages the development of innovative products. This systematic design not only accelerated the approval process for the Solana ETF but also provided an innovative model for global digital asset regulation.
Compared to major international financial centers, Hong Kong's regulatory framework exhibits unique advantages. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is also actively promoting digital asset innovation, but its regulatory approval is more cautious, resulting in longer product listing cycles. Dubai focuses on creating a relaxed innovation environment but is relatively weak in connecting with traditional finance. Hong Kong, with its mature financial market infrastructure and flexible policy adjustment mechanisms, has found a better balance between innovation efficiency and risk control. According to the International Monetary Fund's assessment report in 2025, Hong Kong has jumped into the top three globally in terms of digital asset regulatory maturity index.
Institutional advantages have translated into significant market competitiveness. According to a survey by Standard Chartered Bank, nearly 80% of high-end clients in Hong Kong plan to allocate digital assets within the next 12 months. The securities account trading model of the ETF significantly lowers the participation threshold for traditional investors. Industry insiders predict that the Solana spot ETF could attract $1.5 billion in capital inflow in its first year globally, and with its first-mover advantage and institutional innovation, Hong Kong will occupy an important share in this market. More importantly, this innovation injects new momentum into Hong Kong's consolidation of its status as an international financial center, positioning it favorably in the global digital economy competition.
II. The Scaled Breakthrough of the Solana RWA Ecosystem
The growth of RWA data on the Solana network showcases the deep integration of its technical characteristics and financial innovation. According to Token Terminal statistics, as of October 24, the total value of RWA on Solana reached $707.7 million, with a monthly growth of 5.8% and a monthly increase in the number of holders of 18.28%. Behind this data is a diversified layout of 94 types of RWA assets, covering a wide range from traditional financial assets to the real economy.
The competitive advantage of the ecosystem is reflected in the rapid increase in market share and the full utilization of technological advantages. According to DeFiLlama data, the total scale growth rate of the Solana RWA ecosystem in Q3 2025 exceeded 800%, surpassing most Ethereum L2 chains, making it the platform with the highest market share in RWA among high-performance public chains. This achievement is attributed to Solana's unique technical architecture: its high throughput (theoretical peak of 65,000 TPS) and near-zero transaction fees make it an ideal choice for high-frequency interaction scenarios of RWA. Particularly in application scenarios requiring real-time settlement and frequent asset restructuring, Solana's technical advantages are especially prominent.
A deeper analysis of specific cases can provide a clearer understanding of the operational mechanisms of this ecosystem. The tokenized U.S. Treasury bond fund issued by Ondo Finance on Solana perfectly combines traditional financial products with blockchain technology through smart contracts. This fund tokenizes shares of U.S. Treasury bonds, allowing investors to participate with as little as $1 and trade on the secondary market at any time. Compared to the typical investment threshold of tens of thousands of dollars and a T+2 settlement cycle for traditional Treasury bonds, the solution on Solana not only lowers the participation threshold but also achieves near real-time settlement. Currently, the fund's management scale has exceeded $350 million, making it one of the largest RWA projects in the Solana ecosystem.
Maple Finance's credit tokenization project showcases another dimension of innovation. This platform transforms corporate credit assets into tradable tokens through smart contracts, providing a new financing channel for small and medium-sized enterprises. Compared to traditional credit business, this model significantly reduces review costs and operational expenses while enhancing asset credibility through the transparency of blockchain. To date, Maple Finance has issued over $120 million in credit on Solana, maintaining a relatively low default rate in the industry.
Superstate's money market fund innovation goes even further, as this fund not only tokenizes traditional fund shares but also achieves daily automatic distribution of earnings. Investors can view their holding returns at any time and directly transfer or pledge on-chain. This innovation not only enhances the efficiency of fund utilization but also injects new liquidity into traditional financial products. Currently, this project has attracted over $80 million in funds, with daily trading volume continuing to grow.
The common feature of these innovative projects is their full utilization of Solana's technical advantages, achieving efficiency improvements and lowered thresholds for financial services while maintaining compliance. According to a research report by 21.co, the average transaction cost of RWA projects in the Solana ecosystem is only 1/50 of similar projects on Ethereum, with settlement speed improved by about 20 times. This significant technical advantage, combined with innovative product design, has jointly propelled Solana's rapid rise in the RWA field.
III. The Synergistic Effect of Eastern and Western Capital
From Silicon Valley to Central, differentiated capital logic has found a historic convergence point in the Solana ecosystem. This synergy is reflected not only in the scale of funding but also in its deep-seated complementarity: Western venture capital drives technological innovation and ecosystem construction, while Eastern institutional capital provides market access and compliance endorsement, together building a dual engine for the development of the Solana ecosystem.
A deeper analysis of the investment logic of Western capital reveals the characteristics of its strategic layout. a16z's investment in the Solana ecosystem is not limited to simple financial investment but represents a systematic ecological construction. Between 2023 and 2025, the institution has invested over $700 million in the Solana ecosystem through multiple special funds, focusing on three levels: infrastructure, developer tools, and core protocols. In the infrastructure sector, a16z led a $50 million Series B financing for Jito Labs, supporting the development of key infrastructures such as the Block Assembly Market (BAM). This investment not only enhances Solana's network performance but also creates a new value distribution model for ecosystem participants through the MEV capture mechanism. In terms of developer tools, a16z has invested in several middleware projects, significantly lowering the technical barriers for developers to build applications on Solana. This systematic investment strategy reflects Western venture capital's profound understanding of public chain competition: the success of a single project is insufficient to guarantee the long-term competitiveness of the ecosystem; a complete value network must be constructed.
The participation of Eastern capital showcases different characteristics and values. The decision by Huaxia Fund to issue the Solana ETF is based on a dual consideration of Hong Kong's digital asset policy orientation and market demand. The product design phase fully considered the needs of traditional investors, setting up three currency counters in HKD, RMB, and USD, and providing a physical redemption mechanism. More importantly, Huaxia Fund collaborated with OSL Digital Securities to establish a custody and risk control system that meets the requirements of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, setting a compliance benchmark for traditional financial institutions participating in digital asset investment. The successful issuance of this product not only brings new funding channels to the Solana ecosystem but also provides a reference case for regulatory innovation in other Asian markets.
In addition to public funds, sovereign wealth funds and family offices in Asia are also quietly laying out their strategies. Singapore's Temasek, through its Vertex Ventures, has indirectly invested in several Solana ecosystem projects. Some family offices in Hong Kong have allocated Solana ecosystem tokens through private placement channels, with an average allocation ratio of 3-5% of total assets. Although the participation of these institutions is low-key, their long-term investment orientation and strict requirements for compliance are driving the Solana ecosystem towards a more institutionalized direction.
The synergistic effect of Eastern and Western capital is fully reflected in specific projects. For example, the institutional-level RWA platform on Solana has a technical team from Silicon Valley, supported by Western venture capital such as a16z; while its compliance structure and product design are guided by legal and financial professionals from Hong Kong, with some products specifically designed with compliance access mechanisms for Asian investors. This "Western technology + Eastern market" cooperation model is becoming the standard configuration for the global expansion of Solana ecosystem projects.
The deeper significance of the convergence of capital lies in the fact that it marks a shift in the digital asset market from speculation-driven to value-driven. The technological innovation capabilities brought by Western venture capital, combined with the market access and compliance guarantees provided by Eastern institutional capital, together lay a solid foundation for the long-term development of the Solana ecosystem. According to a research report by Morgan Stanley, this collaborative model could bring over $30 billion in incremental funding to the Solana ecosystem over the next three years, with funds from traditional financial institutions in Asia accounting for about 40%.
IV. Objective Assessment of Risks and Challenges
Although the Solana ecosystem shows strong development momentum, the challenges it faces cannot be ignored. These challenges arise from multiple dimensions, including technology, regulation, and the market, requiring collective responses from ecosystem participants.
Technical stability is a core issue that Solana must address. Since the mainnet launch in 2020, the Solana network has experienced more than ten service interruptions of varying degrees, with the most severe outage lasting nearly 18 hours. A deep analysis of the causes of these incidents reveals that their roots lie in Solana's architectural design: in pursuit of high performance, the network has made certain compromises in node coordination and state synchronization. Specifically, while Solana's Proof of History consensus mechanism significantly enhances throughput, it is prone to node state divergence during network congestion. Additionally, its low transaction fees, while improving user experience, also reduce the cost of network abuse, making DDoS attacks more likely.
To address these issues, the core development team of Solana is advancing several technical improvements. The introduction of the QUIC protocol aims to improve network communication quality by providing more reliable data transmission as a replacement for the original UDP protocol. The reform of the fee market attempts to balance network load through dynamic fee adjustments to prevent resource abuse. Furthermore, the Solana Foundation has launched a "Validator Health Program" to enhance the quality and distribution of global validator nodes through financial incentives. While these measures are expected to improve network stability, their effectiveness still needs to be tested in actual operations, especially under the pressure of future user scale expansion.
The regulatory challenges are equally complex. The U.S. SEC's doubts about the securities nature of Solana tokens have not been fully resolved, and this regulatory uncertainty directly affects the willingness of institutional investors to participate. Although Hong Kong has adopted a relatively open attitude, its regulatory framework still has many restrictions. For example, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission explicitly prohibits listed companies from making cryptocurrency trading their main business, which limits the large-scale participation of traditional enterprises in the construction of the Solana ecosystem. Additionally, there are significant differences in regulatory requirements for RWA across different jurisdictions, creating compliance barriers for the global expansion of Solana ecosystem projects.
Geopolitical factors add additional variables to Solana's international development. The competition between China and the U.S. in the technology sector may affect the free flow of capital and technology, especially in sensitive areas involving financial infrastructure. Hong Kong, as a bridge connecting East and West, brings opportunities with its unique position but also means the need to balance the interests and concerns of all parties. This balance is highly challenging in practice, as any policy change from one side could have far-reaching impacts on ecosystem development.
The intensity of market competition is also escalating. Ethereum is gradually improving its scalability issues through Layer 2 solutions, with the latest data showing that the transaction costs of its main Layer 2 networks have dropped below $0.1, and transaction confirmation times have shortened to a few seconds. Emerging public chains like Aptos and Sui are vying for the favor of high-end financial institutions with the security features of their Move language and enterprise-friendly designs. Notably, some traditional financial institutions have begun to build their own consortium chains for RWA business, and this trend of "bypassing public chains" may pose long-term challenges to public chains like Solana.
In the face of these challenges, the Solana ecosystem needs to adopt systematic response strategies. On the technical level, it must maintain performance advantages while meeting the stability and security requirements of financial institutions. In terms of regulatory compliance, it needs to maintain close communication with regulatory agencies worldwide to promote the establishment of clear and consistent regulatory standards. In market expansion, it needs to enhance its service capabilities for traditional financial institutions while maintaining its DeFi characteristics. The resolution of these challenges cannot be achieved overnight, but it will determine whether Solana can truly become a core component of the next generation of financial infrastructure.
V. Reshaping the Competitive Landscape of Public Chains
The competition in the RWA field is reconstructing the entire public chain industry landscape. This competition is no longer merely a contest of technical indicators but a multidimensional comprehensive competition involving ecosystem integrity, compliance capabilities, and institutional acceptance. Against this backdrop, major public chains are actively adjusting their strategies to compete for the trillion-dollar RWA market.
Ethereum continues to maintain its advantage in the traditional financial sector. Through ongoing optimization of Layer 2 solutions, Ethereum is gradually addressing its high fees and low throughput issues. The latest data shows that the monthly transaction volume of major Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum and Optimism has exceeded 120 million transactions, with average transaction costs dropping to $0.05-$0.1. More importantly, Ethereum has established a comprehensive network of cooperation with financial institutions due to its first-mover advantage. Traditional financial giants like BlackRock and Fidelity have chosen to issue their first tokenized funds on Ethereum, setting an important precedent for other financial institutions. However, Ethereum's challenge lies in its complex Layer 2 network architecture, which may lead to liquidity fragmentation issues and technical barriers for cross-chain operations.
Emerging public chains Aptos and Sui have chosen a differentiated development path. Both of these public chains use the Move programming language, which has unique advantages in asset security and formal verification, making it particularly suitable for financial application scenarios. Aptos focuses on the issuance and trading of security tokens through partnerships with multiple investment banks, and its compliance framework design has received preliminary recognition from several regulatory agencies. Sui, on the other hand, emphasizes the tokenization of digital goods and collectibles, with its object model providing better technical support for the on-chain representation of complex assets. Although these emerging public chains cannot yet compete with Solana in terms of ecosystem scale, their specialized advantages in specific areas are attracting attention from niche markets.
Solana's unique positioning in the RWA competition lies in its balance of performance, cost, and ecosystem vitality. Compared to other public chains, Solana has built competitive advantages in the following three dimensions: first, its single-layer architecture avoids complex cross-chain operations, providing users with a coherent experience; second, its extremely low transaction costs enable it to support high-frequency, small-value RWA trading scenarios, which is difficult for other public chains to achieve; finally, its active developer community continuously drives application innovation, forming a positive ecological cycle.
From the perspective of technological evolution, various public chains are showing a certain trend of convergence. Ethereum is evolving towards high performance through Layer 2, Solana is moving towards stability through architectural optimization, and emerging public chains are attempting to establish advantages in security and compliance. This mutual borrowing and integration of technological routes suggest that the public chain industry may enter a new stage of development. In this stage, no single public chain will dominate all scenarios; instead, segmented markets will form based on different application needs.
The key factors for future competition will increasingly shift towards compliance and institutional collaboration capabilities. The essence of RWA is to bring traditional assets into the blockchain world, and this process must adhere to existing financial regulatory frameworks. Therefore, whether a public chain can provide regulatory-compliant technological infrastructure and attract traditional financial institutions to participate in ecosystem construction will directly impact its development prospects in the RWA space. In this dimension, Solana needs to enhance its institutional friendliness through continuous institutional innovation and technological optimization while maintaining its performance advantages.
Geopolitical factors are also playing an increasingly important role in public chain competition. Different countries and regions have significant differences in their policy orientations towards digital assets, leading to regional characteristics in the development of public chain ecosystems. Whether Solana can establish good regulatory relationships in major economies and adapt to the compliance requirements of different jurisdictions will determine its success or failure in global development. In this context, the approval of the Solana ETF in Hong Kong is not only a product innovation but also represents a regulatory paradigm that may influence policy choices in other regions.
VI. The Prototype of New Financial Infrastructure
From ETFs to RWAs, Solana's evolutionary trajectory paints a picture of the evolution of a digital financial ecosystem. This ecosystem is no longer limited to traditional cryptocurrency trading but is growing into a bridge connecting traditional finance and the digital economy. In this process, Solana has demonstrated its potential as a prototype of new financial infrastructure.
The unique value of the Solana ecosystem lies in its establishment of a high-throughput, low-cost asset circulation environment. In traditional financial systems, asset transfers and settlements often require multiple intermediary steps, taking days and incurring high costs. On Solana, the same operations can be completed in seconds at almost negligible costs. This efficiency improvement not only brings a qualitative change to user experience but, more importantly, opens up new financial application scenarios. For example, based on Solana's real-time settlement capabilities, developers can create complex financial products that are difficult to achieve in traditional finance, such as deposit products that accrue interest by the second and insurance contracts with real-time pricing. These innovations are not only technological breakthroughs but also a rethinking of the essence of finance.
From a broader perspective, Solana represents a new direction for the evolution of financial infrastructure. Traditional financial infrastructure is built on centralized institutions and closed systems, while Solana showcases an open, programmable, and globally accessible alternative. In this new system, the provision of financial services no longer relies on the permission of specific institutions but is automated through smart contracts and open-source code; asset circulation is no longer constrained by geographical boundaries and business hours but can flow continuously worldwide 24/7. The significance of this transformation is comparable to the leap from offline commerce to online e-commerce, as it may redefine the operational model of the financial industry.
However, to truly take on the responsibilities of financial infrastructure, Solana still needs to evolve continuously in several areas. First, there is a need for further enhancement of security and stability, as the reliability requirements for financial infrastructure are much higher than those for existing internet applications. Second, the compliance framework needs to be improved, as financial activities must operate within regulatory frameworks, requiring a deep integration of blockchain technology with existing legal systems. Finally, user experience must be optimized to allow ordinary users to access blockchain-based financial services as easily as using mobile banking.
Looking ahead, the development of the Solana ecosystem may unfold along two dimensions: in depth, it will further penetrate core areas of traditional finance, such as securities issuance, cross-border payments, and trade financing; in breadth, it will connect more asset types and user groups, forming a comprehensive digital asset network. In this process, the convergence of Eastern and Western capital, the acceleration of technological innovation, and the improvement of regulatory frameworks will jointly drive the maturity of the ecosystem.
It is important to emphasize that Solana's exploration is not only a technical experiment but also a practical exploration of future financial forms. Regardless of whether Solana itself ultimately becomes a dominant financial infrastructure, the accumulated technological solutions, institutional innovations, and ecosystem construction experiences will provide valuable references for the construction of the next generation of financial systems. In this sense, the approval of the ETF in Hong Kong in 2025 and the scaled breakthrough of RWA on Solana may be seen in the future as significant milestones in the integration process of traditional finance and digital finance.
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