Solana's adoption by PayPal and Visa signals a new era for blockchain in payments.
Last week, PayPal announced the expansion of its stablecoin PYSUD to Solana, marking the first move beyond the Ethereum blockchain. Industry players shared with Crypto Briefing that this movement solidifies Solana as one of the ‘big three’ blockchains, highlighting that the blockchain and institutions make sense.
Ran Goldi, VP of Payments at Fireblocks, points out that Solana is now “harvesting the fruits” of the work done for the past three years. He adds that Solana’s infrastructure allows payment companies to leverage its blockchain to mimic their existing flows and operations while offering new payment constructs and attributes to unlock new abilities.
“Their recent adoption by PayPal and Visa are far from surprising, and I believe that with confidential transfers, a basic payment requirement for large volume processors, we will see additional names adopting the blockchain into their flows. The key, as I see it, is making sure your blockchain can support the ‘under the hood’ payment requirements for compliance, regulation, and privacy. Doing that, plus speed and vast liquidity, can become a sharp tool in the hands of payment institutions,” Goldi stated.
Moreover, the move by PayPal adds traction to the potential of Solana becoming a blockchain for merchant and institutional adoption, said Tristan Frizza, founder of Zeta Markets. He mentions the previous Solana partnerships with Visa, Stripe, and Shopify Pay.
“Solana is seen as one of the ‘big three’ cryptos alongside BTC and ETH, with many analysts expecting a Solana ETF soon. Solana is one of the fastest-growing blockchains in terms of usage, users, transactions, and volume. This growth reinforces the belief that Solana will be the backbone of the future internet, creating a cycle of increased institutional, retail, and developer activity. While institutional adoption is still in its early stages, these signs are promising for further acceptance and integration,” Frizza assessed.
Solana’s relationship with institutions was also highlighted by Robinson Burkey, CCO and co-founder of Wormhole Foundation. As traditional payment players need to make their offerings future-proof, the implementation of Solana “makes sense.”
“The best way to do that is by meeting their most forward-thinking users on the platforms they’re adopting. You’ll likely see many more institutional moments for Solana in the coming years,” Burkey added.
Matty Taylor, the co-founder of Colosseum, also sees the deployment of PYSUD on Solana as a “massive validation for all of the work the ecosystem has put in over the last year.” Nevertheless, he points out that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
