Solana Ecosystem Wallet and Exchange Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante stated that Solana is shifting from a speculative boom of NFTs and gaming to a more serious development of financial infrastructure. He believes that blockchain is being viewed as a new type of financial settlement layer, with traditional financial institutions still showing strong interest.
(Background: Exclusive interview with Backpack founder: Completely different from FTX’s technical structure, Solana is outstanding enough to attract talent)
(Additional background: 24-hour trading volume exceeds $600 million — What is the Backpack exchange founded by former FTX executives? Registration and airdrop PYTH tutorial)

Table of Contents

• Tokens are a normalized ledger of asset ownership
• Institutional interest remains strong
• Maturity means facing the real world
• The process of financialization on Solana

Recently, Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante mentioned in an interview that the Solana ecosystem is undergoing a fundamental transformation — from a past speculative frenzy centered on NFTs and gaming to a mature stage focused on decentralized finance (DeFi), trading systems, and payment settlements.

Ferrante stated:

People are starting to truly see blockchain as a new type of financial infrastructure. This is no longer about NFTs, no longer about those random “moonshot” games, but more about finance itself.

Tokens are a normalized ledger of asset ownership

When discussing the essence of blockchain technology, Ferrante offered a refined definition:

Tokens are simply a standardized, consensus-based ledger entry that records who owns what. This concept applies everywhere.

This view echoes the current trend of tokenization flourishing within the Solana ecosystem. From BlackRock-supported Jupiter USD stablecoin, to Galaxy Digital’s tokenized stocks, and to tokenized stock products like xStocks, traditional financial assets are accelerating into Solana’s high-speed settlement layer.

Institutional interest remains strong

Despite the current bearish sentiment in the crypto market, Ferrante emphasized that traditional financial institutions’ interest in blockchain remains “exceptionally strong.” He positions blockchain settlement layers as neutral infrastructure, enabling seamless movement of tokenized assets like stocks and derivatives across platforms.

This aligns with recent developments in the Solana ecosystem:

• BlackRock BUIDL fund expanding into Solana: indicating increased confidence in on-chain infrastructure from traditional finance
• Galaxy Digital tokenized stocks: the first Nasdaq-listed company to tokenize on a major public chain
• Franklin Templeton blockchain-based funds: already operating on the Solana platform

Maturity means facing the real world

Ferrante provided a pragmatic interpretation of “maturity”:

What does true maturity really mean? It’s the real world. And the real world is not a lawless free-for-all.

He emphasized that adoption in the real world requires regulatory integration, not avoidance. As cryptocurrencies gradually embed into traditional financial systems, compliance will become a prerequisite rather than an obstacle to development.

This perspective also explains why Backpack exchange chose to obtain a license from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) from its inception, and why it emphasizes security mechanisms like “self-custody” and multi-party computation (MPC) — directly responding to the market’s increased demand for compliance and security following the FTX collapse.

The process of financialization on Solana

From a broader perspective, the Solana ecosystem is transitioning from the explosive growth of “meme coins” to a more sustainable phase of financial application development.

Currently, the largest lending protocol on Solana, Kamino Finance, has a total value locked (TVL) exceeding $2.3 billion, and new projects like DeFi Prime broker Project 0 are attempting to address asset fragmentation, bringing higher capital efficiency to the ecosystem.

Ferrante’s viewpoint perhaps represents the consensus among Solana ecosystem leaders: after experiencing the frenzy of NFTs and meme coins, it’s time for blockchain to return to its core value as a financial infrastructure.