The year 2025 has become a milestone for consolidation, as prominent layer-1 networks establish the foundations for enhanced tools and technologies, fostering improved interoperability and advancing real-world financial applications.
For Ethereum, this meant a rise in institutional adoption and ongoing strides in scalability, with developers increasingly focusing on interoperability as a pivotal challenge leading into 2026. Solana, on the other hand, concentrated on stress-testing its network to meet actual demand while fortifying its infrastructure, preparing for deeper financial applications in the coming year. Together, both networks provide insight into how the industry’s leading platforms are aligning themselves for the next phase of adoption.
This transition is significant, as increased institutional adoption, enhanced interoperability, and more real-world financial applications could shape long-term demand, create opportunities, and ensure the sustainability of returns linked to assets built on these networks.
Ethereum’s Drive for Interoperability in 2026
Ethereum’s progress in 2025 has largely been fueled by deepening institutional interest, including spot ETFs leading to the rise of digital asset treasuries (DATs). Mike Silagadze, co-founder of ether.fi, one of the leading restaking platforms, highlighted ongoing protocol improvements as a crucial factor, emphasizing that the network is committed to “enhancing the Ethereum mainnet layer one for better scalability,” with transaction costs already “very low and set to improve further.”
He also mentioned that advancements in layer-two interoperability — “facilitating asset transfers between layer twos and Ethereum” — have been precisely the right focus, alongside broader initiatives to promote institutional adoption.
This emphasis on interoperability is resonating with developers in the Ethereum ecosystem. Alex Cutler, CEO of Dromos Labs, the team behind Base’s largest decentralized exchange, Aerodrome, indicated that the upcoming wave of Ethereum updates represents a pivotal moment after years of fragmentation.
“In a word: unification,” Cutler stated. “We’ve spent over five years making things more efficient and quicker, but ended up with a fragmented user experience and divided liquidity. That is about to change.”
He noted that recent advancements in interoperability technology are poised to catalyze a significant transformation in Ethereum DeFi, anticipating that “2026 will be the year when all these isolated ecosystems come together to form a fast, cost-effective, and truly interoperable experience for users and institutions alike.”
While ETFs have broadened access to ether, Silagadze argued that they fail to provide investors with exposure to the economic activities taking place on-chain.
“The ETFs allow access to the asset, but they don’t really showcase DeFi or earning potential,” he explained, positing that DATs bridge that gap. “That’s where the DATs come into play… and I believe they have positively influenced the price [of ETH], undoubtedly.”
ETH dipped to $1,472 in April, the lowest point of the year, but rebounded to $4,832 by August as DATs gained traction. Currently, ETH is valued at approximately $3,000, as reported by CoinMarketCap.
Looking forward to 2026, Silagadze, who is focused on neobank solutions at ether.fi, expressed his hope that Ethereum’s next phase will be characterized less by speculative cycles and more by ongoing scaling coupled with practical, everyday applications. While infrastructure enhancements such as lower transaction costs and enhanced layer-two interoperability provide a solid foundation, he believes genuine adoption will ultimately stem from products that resonate with mainstream users while being built entirely on crypto principles.
“I truly believe that the future of adoption will be led by crypto-focused, neobank-type entities,” he remarked, referencing financial services that integrate self-custody, yield, and composability within a single user interface.
For Silagadze, this evolution necessitates the ecosystem moving beyond what he perceives as an excessive focus on “gambling”-related activities and shifting towards applications that effectively address genuine financial needs at scale. He highlighted the significance of widening access to concrete services, from tokenized equities to globally accessible banking tools, emphasizing that these products will drive sustainable user growth for Ethereum.
This translates to “more real-world applications, whether by granting access to tokenized stocks to a wider global audience, providing a broader range of banking services like crypto neobanks, or more diverse non-gambling use cases,” he stressed.
In his opinion, neobanking-style platforms could act as the link between Ethereum’s on-chain technology and the forthcoming wave of users, translating technical advancements into daily financial utility.
Solana Focused on 2025 to Gear Up for 2026
For Solana, after a turbulent yet pivotal 2024, the network seemed to stabilize in 2025. Activity peaked early in the year, largely fueled by memecoin trading that tested the network’s limits.
“January was a whirlwind month,” commented Lucas Bruder, CEO of Jito Labs, pointing to soaring transaction volumes and exceptionally high revenues for validators and DeFi protocols. This pressure contributed to strengthening the network.
Relative to a year prior, Solana is now “incredibly smooth,” he claimed, with enhanced performance and significantly increased capacity. Block space expanded by approximately 25% in 2025, improving user experience and reducing fees, while a fresh influx of DeFi teams entered the scene “enthusiastically ready to innovate on Solana.” Bruder argued that it was a year in which Solana’s historically anticipated role as a high-throughput financial network began to materialize.
“2025 was wild, like everyone was engaging with Solana,” he remarked, noting it was the first instance when the concept of a “decentralized NASDAQ” truly started to take shape.
For Jito, 2025 was characterized by a strong focus on infrastructure development. The company targeted BAM, a novel product designed to enhance transaction sequencing transparency. Bruder stated that the objective was to “unlock new design spaces and markets by refining how transactions are ordered and priced.” While highly technical, the benefits are clear: “better applications, more favorable pricing for users, and an improved user experience.” This foundational work sets the stage for future developments.
A key milestone for the network is anticipated in 2026 with the introduction of Alpenglow, a long-awaited upgrade to Solana’s consensus mechanism. Bruder described Alpenglow as a fundamental simplification in how the network reaches consensus on blocks, which should significantly enhance reliability while drastically cutting confirmation times. Currently, Solana transactions generally take 12 to 13 seconds to completely finalize; with Alpenglow, Bruder indicated, finalization could shrink to about one second, making transactions effectively irreversible almost instantaneously.
This transformation carries substantial implications for high-stakes financial operations, where rapid and definite settlement is crucial. By reinforcing finality assurances and enhancing network coordination, Alpenglow is intended to position Solana more favorably for larger markets, with these advancements broadly regarded as essential prerequisites for high-stakes financial activities. Bruder maintains that the upgrade is less about incremental performance improvements and more about solidifying Solana’s role as the foundational infrastructure for what he consistently refers to as a “truly decentralized NASDAQ.”
Read more: Solana Set for Major Overhaul After 98% Votes to Approve Historic ‘Alpenglow’
