Solana closed December 2025 with tokenized real-world assets at $873.3 million, a near 10% month‑over‑month rise that set a new on‑chain RWA high. The gain reflects a wave of institutional activity — tokenized U.S. Treasuries, tokenized stocks and RWA‑backed stablecoin initiatives — and a validator‑backed protocol upgrade that targets sub‑second finality.
December’s $873.3 million total marked a sharp acceleration for Solana’s RWA ecosystem. Holders rose to roughly 126,236 addresses while year‑to‑date RWA growth on Solana reached about 218%, substantially above Ethereum’s reported 81% YTD figure, according to Messari.
The expansion was driven by tokenized U.S. Treasury products and new tokenized equity offerings, which together pushed more institutional inventory on‑chain.
Major institutional entrants and programs cited in reporting include BlackRock‑linked funds used as collateral for Ethena products, Franklin Templeton, Jupiter’s planned conversion of about $750 million in USDC into a native stablecoin, Circle’s $635 million tokenized treasury fund expanding to Solana, JPMorgan’s $50 million commercial paper tokenization highlighted at Breakpoint 2025, and Keel’s $500 million program to deepen RWA liquidity.
Alpenglow upgrade and settlement implications
Validators approved the Alpenglow proposal with overwhelming support in 2025, and the protocol changes are expected to roll out in early 2026. The upgrade replaces parts of Solana’s previous consensus stack with new components (Votor and Rotor) and aims to cut transaction finality from more than 10 seconds to about 100–150 milliseconds.
“Near‑instant finality will cut settlement risk,” said Solana core developers, framing the upgrade as a necessary step for on‑chain securities settlement. Faster finality directly lowers counterparty and intraday credit risk and opens the door to trading and custody workflows that approximate traditional exchange settlement speeds.
Payments and custody rails are evolving in tandem with tokenization. Ethena Labs and Jupiter are partnering on JupUSD, a Solana‑native stablecoin initially collateralized by tokenized U.S. Treasuries and other RWA collateral; the project was scheduled for late 2025 and is now expected in early 2026, with Jupiter planning a phased conversion of roughly $750 million of USDC. Separately, the Solana Foundation and Wavebridge have pursued a KRW‑pegged stablecoin initiative aimed at late 2025/early 2026 to bridge the Korean market.
Investors and product teams will now track three operational checkpoints into 2026: the Alpenglow deployment and its real‑world stability, the commercial rollout of RWA‑backed stablecoins such as JupUSD and regional KRW initiatives, and regulatory clarity — notably the expected U.S. legislative movement around tokenized securities — that could determine whether institutional issuance scales.
For compliance teams and custodians, the immediate priorities are proof points on uptime and deterministic settlement, while issuers will watch token standards that embed transfer restrictions and KYC automation.
