Bitwise Chief Investment Officer: Why Solana will become the next big thing?

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan argues that Solana (SOL) is poised for significant growth, replicating the success of Bitcoin and Ethereum through a classic supply-demand dynamic.

Key Catalysts: Multiple major institutions have filed for Spot Solana ETPs, with an SEC decision expected by October 10, 2025. Furthermore, a new publicly-traded treasury company, Forward Industries, has been established with a $1.65 billion commitment to purchase and stake SOL.
Core Appeal: As a competitor to Ethereum, Solana's value proposition is its high performance. It processes more transactions per second at a lower cost and with faster finality, recently upgrading to achieve transaction confirmation in 150 milliseconds.
Market Position: Solana's market cap is significantly smaller than Bitcoin and Ethereum's, meaning a relatively small influx of new capital from ETPs and corporate treasuries could have a major impact on its price.
Considerations: Critics point to trade-offs in decentralization and network stability. Its higher annual inflation rate (~4.3%) also partially offsets the supply-demand advantage compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer, Bitwise

Compiled by Luffy, Foresight News

The recipe for high returns in cryptocurrencies over the past 18 months has been clear: add in the inflow of funds from exchange-traded products (ETPs), then combine it with a large-scale increase in corporate treasuries, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for big returns.

Bitcoin followed this recipe, rising from $40,000 in January 2024 to $112,000 today; Ethereum employed the same strategy in April 2025 and has since tripled in price to $4,500.

It’s no surprise that this “recipe” works; it’s essentially the classic law of supply and demand at work:

Since January 11, 2024, the Bitcoin network has produced a total of 322,681 Bitcoins, while ETPs and companies have purchased more than 1.1 million Bitcoins;
Since April 15, 2025, the Ethereum network has produced 388,568 ETH, but ETPs and companies have increased their holdings by as much as 7.4 million.

When demand exceeds supply, prices naturally rise.

Why do I think Solana will be the next big thing?

Solana is well-positioned to replicate this path.

Several issuers, including Bitwise, Grayscale, VanEck, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, Invesco, and Canary Capital, have filed applications to launch spot Solana ETPs. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to rule on these applications on or before October 10, 2025, suggesting that multiple institutions could simultaneously launch spot Solana ETPs in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Meanwhile, this past weekend, three leading institutions—Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital—committed $1.65 billion in cash and stablecoins to Forward Industries, a large, publicly traded Solana treasury company. Following the transaction, the new company will begin purchasing and staking Solana tokens, aiming to achieve outsized returns.

Notably, Forward Industries has appointed Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, as Chairman. Multicoin was one of Solana's earliest investors, and Samani has been one of its most persuasive and committed advocates. Previously, Michael Saylor played a key role in promoting Bitcoin as Executive Chairman of Bitcoin treasury firm Strategy, while Tom Lee championed Ethereum as Chairman of Ethereum treasury firm BitMine. If Samani can similarly convey Solana's value proposition on platforms like CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business, it will help drive a flywheel of investor demand.

What is Solana’s core appeal?

Of course, simply having an ETP approved and a treasury company established isn't enough to guarantee investor buy-in. These investment vehicles must demonstrate compelling fundamentals. A prime example: Although the Ethereum ETF was approved as early as June 2024, it wasn't until April 2025, as market interest in stablecoins intensified, that Ethereum, the leading stablecoin blockchain, truly took off.

So, what is Solana’s core appeal?

Solana, a competitor to Ethereum, is essentially a programmable blockchain capable of hosting a wide range of use cases, including stablecoins, tokenized assets, and DeFi applications. Its biggest drawcards are its ability to process higher transactions per second (TPS) than Ethereum, at significantly lower transaction costs, and with fast finality (the speed at which transactions are confirmed and cannot be tampered with). In fact, the blockchain recently underwent a major technical upgrade: transaction finality time will be reduced from approximately 12 seconds to 150 milliseconds, a fraction of a second. Once this upgrade takes effect, Solana will become one of the fastest blockchains in the world.

Solana can achieve this performance due to its technical architecture, which is completely different from Ethereum: it does not rely on Layer 2, which makes it easier for ordinary users to use.

However, critics argue that Solana’s high performance comes at a key trade-off: it’s less decentralized and its network stability is more fragile (more prone to issues like outages).

Despite this, Solana has managed to attract a significant number of users: among programmable blockchains, it ranks third in stablecoin liquidity (behind only Ethereum and Tron) and fourth in tokenized assets, with rapid growth, with tokenized assets under management increasing by 140% so far this year. Solana's supporters believe it is the only blockchain currently capable of supporting the tokenization of mainstream assets on a global scale.

Solana's key differences from Bitcoin and Ethereum

There is one major difference between Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana that’s worth noting: Solana’s relatively small scale.

As of September 7, 2025, the market capitalizations of the three blockchains are: Bitcoin at $2.22 trillion, Ethereum at $519 billion, and Solana at $116 billion. In other words, Solana is only 1/20 of Bitcoin’s size and less than 1/4 of Ethereum’s.

Given the scale of the blockchain, even a relatively small influx of funds into Solana could have a significant impact on its price. For example, Forward Industries' planned purchase of $1.6 billion in Solana, when converted to Bitcoin at scale, would be equivalent to a $33 billion Bitcoin purchase. However, this advantage would be partially offset by Solana's higher annual inflation rate (approximately 4.3%), compared to Bitcoin's and Ethereum's annual inflation rates of only 0.8% and 0.5%, respectively.

Even so, Solana remains quite attractive at this point, and my advice is to keep a close eye on what’s happening with Solana in the coming months.