Solana's 2026 Outlook: ETF Resilience, Hidden Fees, and the LST Market Shakeup

As 2025 draws to a close and 2026 begins, the Solana ecosystem stands at a fascinating inflection point. The network has weathered significant market volatility, yet continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience in institutional adoption metrics while simultaneously experiencing dramatic shifts in its liquid staking token landscape. In this comprehensive analysis from the Lightspeed podcast, hosts Danny and Carlos from the Blockworks research team dissect the key trends, challenges, and opportunities that will define Solana's trajectory in the coming year.

The conversation spans critical topics including the surprising resilience of Solana ETF inflows despite bearish price action, the emergence of payment-for-order-flow dynamics on the network, the evolving revenue models of trading applications, and perhaps most surprisingly, the substantial market share losses experienced by the once-dominant JitoSOL liquid staking token. These developments collectively paint a picture of an ecosystem in rapid evolution, where the application layer increasingly captures value and institutional adoption pathways continue to mature.

Solana ETF Flows Demonstrate Surprising Resilience

One of the most encouraging developments for the Solana ecosystem has been the performance of its spot ETF products, which have now been trading for approximately six months across multiple issuers. What makes the recent flow data particularly noteworthy is its divergence from typical market patterns. Despite experiencing negative price action over the past three months, Solana ETFs have maintained positive net inflows—a trend that runs counter to conventional expectations of risk-on and risk-off behavior in crypto markets.

Danny highlighted this counterintuitive pattern: "I was surprised to see that flows for the Sol ETFs have remained positive despite kind of negative price action in the past three months or so. You can see kind of the decline in those flows since early November, mid-October to today in magnitude, but the flows remain positive."

The comparison to Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF flows makes this trend even more striking. While BTC and ETH products have experienced significant outflows during the same period, Solana's institutional vehicle has maintained its momentum. This suggests a distinct institutional thesis around Solana that may be decoupling from broader crypto market sentiment, potentially indicating that sophisticated investors view the asset as offering differentiated value proposition compared to its larger-cap peers.

The Divergence Between ETFs and Digital Asset Treasury Companies

Carlos provided crucial context by distinguishing between two primary channels of institutional capital flowing into Solana: ETFs and digital asset treasury companies (DATCOs). This distinction reveals important dynamics about how different types of institutional investors are positioning themselves.

"For me, there has been a clear divergence since November between the flows from the ETFs and the digital asset treasury companies," Carlos explained. "In late October, a second cohort of ETFs joined like Rex, Osprey, and Bitwise, and you can kind of see that on the chart where you have an uptick in ETF flows. November was the strongest month by far for ETF flows. We saw 420 million in net inflows up from 128 million dollars in October."

The contrast with DATCO activity is stark. Carlos noted that there was virtually no buying activity from digital asset treasury companies in November and minimal activity in December. This stagnation can be attributed to persistent discounts to market net asset values and limited secondary market activity, which have constrained capital raising capacity for these vehicles.

The implications are significant for 2026. As Carlos put it: "What we will see in 2026 is that ETFs were the best vehicle all along to get institutional exposure to Sol's price. And I think we will see DATCOs continue to bleed out in terms of liquidity and buying pressure for the Sol asset."

Understanding the DATCO Versus ETF Debate

The discussion touched on an important nuance in the ongoing debate about the relative merits of different institutional vehicles for Solana exposure. While ETFs provide straightforward exposure to price movements of the underlying asset, with issuers able to stake and pass staking yield to investors, DATCOs theoretically offer more flexibility.

Danny acknowledged this distinction: "DATCOs could be a bit more creative with the things they do. A bunch of them have launched their own LSTs, for instance, like Hangtum. And what they're trying to do is just to maximize the SOL per share. They can play with on-chain strategies, for instance, listing that LST on money markets like Kamino."

These strategies could include looping mechanisms and other yield optimization approaches that would be unavailable to traditional ETF structures. However, the discussion leaned toward ETFs remaining the superior choice for most institutional investors seeking simple price exposure, given their decades of proven track record and operational efficiency.

The conversation did note that for investors willing to engage in active strategies around premium-to-NAV dynamics, the current market conditions—with many DATCOs trading at significant discounts—might present opportunistic entry points that weren't available when vehicles were trading at two, three, or four times their net asset value.

Payment for Order Flow Emerges on Solana

Perhaps the most technically detailed portion of the discussion centered on an emerging phenomenon on Solana: payment-for-order-flow (PFOF) dynamics that mirror those found in traditional finance. This topic was sparked by research from BQ Brady, which examined how wallets and applications monetize swaps not just through visible fees, but through routing choices, background arrangements, and what the research characterizes as "over-tipping."

The traditional finance comparison is instructive. When a retail trader places an order on a platform like Robinhood, the broker routes that order to a market maker under a revenue-sharing agreement. The user interacts only with the broker, while the actual trade execution and profit-sharing happen behind the scenes.

On Solana, a similar structure is emerging through the transaction fee market with priority fees and transaction tips. Brady's research examined how transactions flow from users through front-end applications like Phantom, Jupiter, or Axiom, then to aggregators that determine optimal routing—potentially through prop AMMs like Wintermute, Solphi, or others—and finally to transaction landing services like Jito, Nozomi, or Helius.

Low Activity Wallets Are Systematically Overpaying

The research's most striking finding relates to the distribution of priority fees across different wallet cohorts. Brady segmented addresses by transaction count, using this as a proxy for identifying organic users versus automated bots and market makers.

Carlos summarized the key finding: "The key conclusion in my opinion is that low activity wallets routinely overpay priority fees, even when the blocks are not full. So even when there's no contentious state or whatever, low activity wallets, which are basically normal users like Danny and I, are overpaying."

The data revealed that sophisticated actors—market makers and automated systems running millions of transactions—optimize their priority fee payments to minimize unnecessary expenditure. They understand precisely how much is required to land transactions effectively. Meanwhile, wallets with lower transaction counts—representing typical retail users—consistently pay priority fees far in excess of what's necessary.

This creates what the research describes as "invisible rent extraction" that the Solana ecosystem will need to address. The disparity is particularly pronounced when examining different transaction landing services, with Nozomi identified as receiving the highest swap tips per swap—over a million dollars in swap tips across just 2 million swaps, compared to Jito's 300,000 in tips across 24 million swaps.

Axiom as a Case Study in Hidden Fee Dynamics

The research used Axiom, the dominant trading terminal on Solana, as a detailed case study. The findings were striking: Axiom users consistently pay substantially higher priority fees than the Solana network average, with P50 (median) priority fee units at one million—significantly elevated compared to typical network activity.

This matters because Axiom rapidly became the dominant trading platform on Solana, usurping all existing trading bots and terminal platforms within several months of launch and maintaining that dominance despite the recent cooling of meme coin activity.

However, Danny noted an important nuance in interpreting Axiom's revenue figures: "Axiom also does have significant kickbacks for trading volume. So I think their net revenues are basically half of their actual total reported revenues, just due to all the kickbacks and the referral fee kickbacks and different things that they do."

Even accounting for these kickbacks, Axiom's platform revenue demonstrates the substantial monetization potential of front-end applications on Solana. At their peak, they were generating approximately one million dollars daily in platform revenue, though this has moderated alongside the cooling of meme coin mania.

The Alignment Problem Between Users and Applications

The discussion explored the structural misalignment that exists between user interests and application incentives in the current Solana transaction stack. Keoni, a prominent voice in the ecosystem, provided additional commentary that the hosts incorporated into their analysis.

The core dynamic is that front-end applications present users with transactions to sign, and users are technically always signing off on the fees they pay. However, most users lack the technical sophistication to understand what constitutes a reasonable fee and will generally sign regardless of the amount. This information asymmetry grants enormous power to front-end applications to overcharge on priority fees.

Danny elaborated on the incentive structure: "Front ends can also add a direct front end fee, but that's more obvious to the user. And so maybe they are basically disincentivized to increase their native front end fee and incentivized to increase their backend hidden TX fee or priority fee settings to get higher hidden fees and lower front end fees."

The architecture of centralized landing services like Nozomi and Jito potentially exacerbates this dynamic. It's far easier for front-end applications to arrange fee-sharing agreements with a handful of transaction landing services than it would be to negotiate with each individual validator. This creates what Keoni described as "perverse incentives" that may not serve user interests.

Applications Now Capture More Value Than the Network

A remarkable shift has occurred in the Solana ecosystem's value capture dynamics. Application revenue now substantially exceeds network revenue—a development with significant implications for how investors should think about the ecosystem.

Carlos presented the data: "If you look at REV, REV has declined dramatically since the January peak. If you look at November, REV was around $27 million, December is on track to be about $24 million, which is like a 90% drop from the Trump era. The important thing here is to also look at the other side of the equation, which is application revenue."

Solana applications surpassed network revenue in June 2024 and have maintained their lead ever since. The ratio has grown from approximately 1:1 at that time to nearly 3.5:1 today—meaning applications now earn $3.50 for every $1.00 the network generates in revenue.

This raises profound questions about valuation. As Carlos posed: "Does valuation in the coming year reflect this increase in value capture to the application layer? Do applications outperform, or does Solana keep getting this L1 premium from which other networks such as Ethereum, BNB, or Tron benefit?"

Revealed Preferences and User Behavior

Despite the technical concerns about over-tipping and hidden fees, the hosts acknowledged that users are demonstrating through their behavior that they don't particularly mind these dynamics. This represents what Ryan Connor might characterize as revealed versus stated preferences.

Carlos made this point directly: "Users do not actually care if they are paying a 50 cent or 20 cent or 10 cent priority fee. They demonstratively are willing to pay that. And I don't think it really matters from a user perspective in the sense that if I'm trading on Axiom, I'm demonstrating that I don't really care if I'm over-tipping."

This pragmatic view acknowledges that while technically sophisticated observers may identify inefficiencies, the typical user experience may be satisfactory regardless. The marginal fees, even when excessive, often represent a small fraction of transaction values for most retail trades.

However, this doesn't eliminate the issue from a competitive standpoint. Applications that can offer better fee economics may attract users over time, and the ecosystem's long-term health may depend on reducing unnecessary friction and extraction.

The Convergence Toward TradFi Brokerage Models

A key prediction for 2026 centers on the continued convergence between on-chain trading experiences and traditional finance retail brokerage models. Danny articulated this vision: "These front-ends still charge meaningful fees on volume. My expectation is that maybe it won't happen next year—I doubt that Axiom is going to go from 50 bips to zero overnight—but continuing to see this transition where the front-end fees decrease kind of closer and closer towards potentially zero."

The hypothetical end state resembles the Robinhood model: zero explicit fees for the user, with the application monetizing through agreements with market makers and transaction landing services. An Axiom might partner with Nozomi and a prop AMM like Wintermute or Solphi, routing all flow through them and receiving a revenue share on the trades.

This wouldn't happen overnight, but the hosts expect gradual movement in this direction as competition intensifies and applications seek differentiation through fee structures that appear more user-friendly.

The Rise of Super Trading Apps and All-in-One Platforms

Another major prediction for 2026 involves the consolidation of trading functionality into comprehensive platforms. Danny referenced the Blockworks Research 2026 thesis report: "We've seen a lot of, at least in the past, it was very common to see a trading app that is specific to meme coins and then a trading app that is specific to perps and then a trading app that is specific to prediction markets."

This siloed approach is giving way to horizontal platforms. Wallets like Phantom have onboarded perps, prediction markets, and various other DeFi services. Trading terminals that started as meme coin bots, like Axiom, now offer perps, stablecoin yields, and additional features.

"I expect that a lot of these singular function trading apps and singular function apps basically just disappear," Danny predicted. "You start to lose any meaningful edge or advantage at this point. And the real value comes from building this kind of horizontal platform for a user where they can do any of the potential things, financial things that are available to them all in one place."

This Robin Hood thesis—creating comprehensive financial super-apps—represents a significant opportunity for teams that can execute effectively on multiple product verticals simultaneously.

The Stablecoin Neo-Bank Opportunity

Carlos extended the platform thesis to an adjacent opportunity: stablecoin-native neo-banking. This represents potentially one of the most significant growth verticals for Solana in 2026, partly because it's less correlated with speculative crypto market activity.

"The fintech playbook over the past 15 years, the main edge has been banking relationships and regulatory licenses," Carlos explained. "With stablecoins, you still kind of need that because you still need to touch fiat at some point. But when you are only staying in stablecoins, you don't really need these banking relationships and regulatory licenses aren't as important."

Applications like Fuse demonstrate this approach. Users can deposit US dollars to virtual bank accounts, receive stablecoins, spend via Visa cards, and earn yield—all while the application leverages Solana's smart contract infrastructure to be dramatically more efficient than traditional fintechs building on legacy rails.

Carlos highlighted Fuse's intentional approach: rather than allowing users to connect to external DeFi protocols, they integrate products into their unified UX where they can monetize effectively. Instead of letting users visit Kamino.com directly, they offer a simple "earn 5% on your US dollars" feature, with Fuse managing the underlying vault and capturing fees.

Gas Fee Abstraction as Competitive Advantage

Both hosts predicted that 2026 will see increased abstraction of transaction fees from end users. This represents both a better user experience and a potential competitive moat for applications that implement it effectively.

Carlos referenced historical context: "A really funny story is Argent wallet on Ethereum. They initially covered your transactions, but when the 2021 mania hit and fees were exorbitant, they lost millions of dollars and had to shut down that service."

On Solana, where base layer fees are negligible even during congestion, this approach is far more viable. Applications can cover gas fees entirely while monetizing through other channels—vaults, trading fees, or service fees. Fuse already does this, and the hosts expect more applications to follow.

"It's a skill issue on the side of crypto applications and wallets that they still charge you gas fees to transact," Carlos argued. Applications that abstract this away will have competitive advantages in user acquisition and retention.

The Dramatic Shift in the LST Market

Perhaps the most surprising development discussed was the substantial market share losses experienced by JitoSOL, the previously dominant liquid staking token on Solana. The data tells a stark story: JitoSOL's market share has declined from approximately 35% to just over 20%—a significant erosion that would have seemed improbable just months ago.

The primary beneficiary of this shift has been Sanctum, which has enabled various issuers to easily launch branded LSTs. Carlos praised their approach: "In my opinion, Sanctum is one of the most probably underrated teams in Solana. They have gotten a lot of traction over the past year or so. A bunch of companies have used them without people even knowing that in the backend."

The list of Sanctum-powered LSTs is extensive. Both Bybit and Binance use Sanctum infrastructure for their LSTs. Digital asset treasury companies like Forward Industries and DeFi Development Corp also leverage Sanctum. Looking at the market share chart, of the numerous LST tickers represented, only JitoSOL and mSOL (Marinade) are issued by their own companies—virtually all others run on Sanctum infrastructure.

Why Sanctum's Model Is Winning

Sanctum's success stems from several factors. First, they've solved the liquidity fragmentation problem that typically plagues proliferating token standards. Their proprietary AMM enables easy swapping between any Sanctum-issued LSTs and SOL, maintaining unified liquidity despite multiple issuers.

Second, they allow issuers to maintain their own brand identity while benefiting from shared infrastructure. For digital asset treasury companies, this is particularly valuable—they can say they have their own LST (like forwardSOL) while maintaining flexibility to deploy in DeFi applications and pursue yield optimization strategies that wouldn't be possible with JitoSOL.

Third, Sanctum offers INF, their own LST that provides higher yields than most alternatives because it represents LP shares of the LST pool. Holders earn normal staking rewards plus trading fees from all Sanctum-issued LST swaps—a compelling value proposition that has helped maintain resilient market share.

The Double Zero Effect

One of the most striking developments has been the emergence of Double Zero SOL (dzSOL), which has grown to rival JitoSOL in size. As a relatively new protocol on Solana, Double Zero launching their own Sanctum-powered LST rather than using JitoSOL represents a meaningful data point about market dynamics.

The chart discussed shows dramatic flows from Binance SOL toward Double Zero SOL in recent months, along with steady Jupiter SOL (jupSOL) holdings. This diversification away from JitoSOL would have been difficult to predict a year ago when the common talking point was that JitoSOL would be the natural beneficiary of institutional adoption and ETF approvals.

Carlos noted the fundamental logic: "Why would you give away stake to Jito when you can just keep it for yourself and potentially monetize that? Sanctum's pool mechanism means you can easily swap your LST to SOL or other LSTs, so there is no fundamental reason why you would give away that power to another entity."

ETF Issuers and the LST Opportunity

The discussion raised a fascinating possibility for 2026: could ETF issuers launch their own LSTs? The logic is compelling. Rather than staking through a third party like Helius (which Bitwise reportedly uses), ETF issuers could launch Sanctum-powered LSTs, capture the staking operation in-house, and potentially offer lower management fees as a result.

Danny proposed this scenario: "You could have a dynamic where more staking ETFs come into play. And if BlackRock comes in and says they're going to do ISOL or whatever the ticker would be, they could launch their own LST via Sanctum. It could be the BlackRock SOL, and you can see that grow in meaningful size on the chain."

This approach would allow ETF issuers to differentiate on fees. Current products charge 20-30 basis points annually. An issuer with their own LST could potentially charge 10 basis points while monetizing the staking operation directly—a potential competitive advantage in attracting institutional flows.

Carlos extended this thinking to European markets, where such structures already exist: "You've already seen kind of this game with European ETPs where sometimes staked ETPs do not charge fees on assets under management. Instead, they take a cut of the staking rewards."

Technical Solutions on the Horizon

The discussion touched on potential technical improvements that could address some of the PFOF and fee extraction concerns. Multiple concurrent proposals—where multiple leaders can propose blocks simultaneously—is actively being developed and could arrive in 2026.

This architectural change could improve the dynamics around transaction ordering and reduce opportunities for invisible rent extraction. Additionally, priority ordering based on specific rules could help Solana compete more effectively with traditional markets while protecting retail users.

These improvements align with Solana's ongoing development roadmap and demonstrate the ecosystem's commitment to addressing identified challenges through technical innovation rather than accepting the status quo.

The Path Dependency of User Behavior

An interesting observation emerged around how historical technical issues may have created path dependencies in user behavior. Danny noted that for extended periods, perhaps during 2024, priority fees were effectively non-functional—higher fees didn't meaningfully improve transaction landing success.

This has since been improved, but applications may have retained aggressive default settings from periods when such settings were necessary (or at least appeared necessary) to land transactions reliably. Combined with users who haven't updated their understanding of reasonable fee levels, this creates persistent over-payment dynamics.

Education around meaningful priority fee ranges versus transaction landing probability could help address this issue, though applications have limited incentive to promote such education given their revenue benefits from over-tipping.

The Wallet Moat and Platform Evolution

The discussion acknowledged that wallets have realized they possess a stronger competitive moat than previously recognized. Whether Phantom, MetaMask, Solflare, or Rabby, these applications have become default touchpoints for crypto users.

This moat is being leveraged through aggressive horizontal expansion. Phantom has integrated perps, prediction markets, and various DeFi features. Rabby has followed a similar trajectory. These applications are evolving from simple wallets into comprehensive financial platforms.

Carlos noted an important tension in this evolution: "You see Phantom launching new features sometimes and then crypto natives are complaining. They have to navigate this fine line between still tailoring to the crypto native users but trying to onboard new users who are not used to the complexities of crypto."

This tension between serving existing power users and expanding to mainstream audiences will continue to shape product development throughout 2026.

Building for Normal Users Versus Crypto Natives

A philosophical distinction emerged between applications building for "normal users" versus those still primarily serving crypto-native audiences. Fuse exemplifies the former approach: they don't allow users to connect to external DeFi protocols, instead building everything into a unified, simplified experience.

"When you have new applications, you kind of have this freedom of just thinking from first principles and from scratch of what would a normal user want," Carlos explained. "They don't even want to know probably that they're using crypto in the backend. So let's just abstract away all the complexities."

This approach trades power-user features for mainstream accessibility. It represents a bet that the next wave of crypto adoption will come from users who want the benefits of blockchain infrastructure without its complexity—and that serving these users effectively requires fundamentally different product design philosophies.

Looking Ahead to 2026

The conversation painted a picture of an ecosystem in transition. Institutional adoption via ETFs continues to mature, with flows remaining resilient despite market volatility. The application layer increasingly captures value relative to the base network. Hidden fee dynamics are emerging that mirror traditional finance, creating both opportunities and challenges. And the LST market has experienced a dramatic reshuffling that few would have predicted.

For investors and builders, these trends suggest several strategic implications. Applications with strong user relationships and diversified monetization approaches may outperform. Infrastructure that enables efficient value capture—like Sanctum for LSTs—may prove more valuable than previously recognized. And the race to build comprehensive, user-friendly financial super-apps is accelerating.

As Danny concluded: "Happy New Year's to all the listeners out there. You'll see much more and hear much more from us in the New Year." For Solana, 2026 promises to be a year of continued evolution, competition, and maturation—with opportunities for those who understand the ecosystem's shifting dynamics.

Facts + Figures

• Solana ETF flows have remained positive despite negative price action over the past three months, diverging from typical risk-on/risk-off market patterns.

• November 2025 saw $420 million in net inflows to Solana ETFs, up from $128 million in October, making it the strongest month for ETF flows.

• Cumulative Solana ETF inflows reached approximately $550-600 million as of late November 2025, excluding seed amounts.

• Digital asset treasury company (DATCO) buying activity for Solana was nearly non-existent in November and December 2025.

• Solana network revenue (REV) declined approximately 90% from January 2025 peak to approximately $24-27 million monthly by December 2025.

• Solana applications surpassed network revenue in June 2024 and now earn approximately $3.50 for every $1.00 the network generates—up from a 1:1 ratio at that time.

• JitoSOL market share declined from approximately 35% to just over 20% over the past several months.

• Nozomi received over $1 million in swap tips across just 2 million swaps, while Jito received $300,000 in tips across 24 million swaps—highlighting substantial per-swap tip disparities.

• Axiom platform revenue peaked at approximately $1 million daily, though net revenue is approximately half due to referral kickbacks.

• Low activity wallets routinely overpay priority fees even when Solana blocks are not full, representing what researchers describe as "invisible rent extraction."

• Bitwise charges 20 basis points on their Solana ETF, Fidelity charges 25 basis points, and other issuers charge around 30 basis points.

• Both Binance and Bybit use Sanctum infrastructure in the backend for their respective LSTs.

• Double Zero SOL has grown to approximately equal JitoSOL in size, representing one of the fastest-growing LSTs in the ecosystem.

• Sanctum's INF token provides higher yields than most LSTs because it represents LP shares of their LST pool, earning trading fees in addition to staking rewards.

• Forward Industries, DeFi Development Corp, and numerous other digital asset treasury companies use Sanctum to issue their branded LSTs.

• Bitwise reportedly uses Helius for native staking rather than JitoSOL for their spot Solana ETF.

Questions Answered

Why are Solana ETF flows remaining positive despite price declines?

Solana ETF flows have remained resilient despite approximately three months of negative price action, which diverges from typical market patterns where inflows correlate with rising prices and outflows with falling prices. This suggests institutional investors may have a differentiated thesis around Solana that decouples from broader crypto market sentiment. The data shows approximately $420 million in net inflows during November 2025, the strongest month recorded, even as Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs experienced significant outflows during the same period. This institutional confidence may reflect views about Solana's unique value proposition, technical capabilities, or growth potential that aren't directly tied to short-term price movements.

What is payment for order flow and how is it emerging on Solana?

Payment for order flow on Solana refers to the emerging practice where front-end applications monetize user transactions through routing choices, arrangements with transaction landing services, and priority fee settings—beyond their explicit trading fees. This mirrors traditional finance, where brokers like Robinhood route orders to market makers under revenue-sharing agreements. On Solana, when users trade through applications like Axiom, their transactions flow through aggregators to prop AMMs or DEXs, then to landing services like Jito or Nozomi. Research shows low-activity wallets (likely retail users) routinely overpay priority fees, even when blocks aren't full, while sophisticated actors optimize fee payments. This creates "invisible rent extraction" that benefits applications at user expense.

Why has JitoSOL lost significant market share?

JitoSOL has experienced substantial market share decline from approximately 35% to just over 20% due primarily to competition from Sanctum-enabled LSTs. Sanctum allows any protocol or company to easily launch branded liquid staking tokens while accessing shared liquidity through their proprietary AMM. This has proven attractive to digital asset treasury companies wanting to maintain brand identity, protocols like Double Zero seeking native stake, and even major exchanges like Binance and Bybit. The key insight is that organizations no longer need to "give away power" to Jito when they can launch their own LST with comparable liquidity access. Double Zero SOL has grown to approximately equal JitoSOL's size, representing the most dramatic shift in the LST landscape.

How are Solana applications capturing more value than the network itself?

Solana applications surpassed network revenue in June 2024 and now earn approximately $3.50 for every $1.00 the network generates—a ratio that has grown from 1:1 at that time. While network revenue (REV) declined approximately 90% from January 2025 peaks to around $24-27 million monthly, application revenue has proven more resilient. This shift reflects applications' ability to own end-user relationships and exercise pricing power through explicit fees and hidden monetization like over-tipping on priority fees. The trend raises important questions about whether valuations should reflect this increased application layer value capture or whether the base layer will maintain its traditional premium.

What are super trading apps and why do they matter for 2026?

Super trading apps represent the convergence of previously siloed crypto trading functions—meme coins, perps, prediction markets, stablecoins—into comprehensive horizontal platforms. This evolution mirrors the Robin Hood model in traditional finance. Wallets like Phantom have onboarded perps, prediction markets, and various DeFi services, while trading terminals like Axiom expanded from meme coins to perps, stablecoin yields, and more. The prediction for 2026 is that singular-function trading apps will increasingly disappear as competitive advantages shift to platforms offering comprehensive user experiences. Teams that can effectively execute across multiple product verticals will capture disproportionate market share.

Could ETF issuers launch their own liquid staking tokens?

ETF issuers could potentially launch their own LSTs through providers like Sanctum rather than using existing options like JitoSOL. This would allow them to capture staking operations in-house, potentially offer lower management fees (below current 20-30 basis point levels), and differentiate their products. A hypothetical "BlackRock SOL" or "ISOL" could grow to meaningful size on-chain while the issuer monetizes both the ETF wrapper and the staking operation. This approach already exists in European markets, where some staked ETPs charge zero management fees and instead take a percentage of staking rewards. Regulatory considerations in the US remain a factor, but the economic logic is compelling.

What makes Sanctum successful in competing with JitoSOL?

Sanctum's success stems from three key factors: solving liquidity fragmentation, enabling brand preservation, and offering superior yield through their INF token. Their proprietary AMM allows easy swapping between any Sanctum-issued LSTs and SOL, maintaining unified liquidity despite multiple issuers. Organizations can launch branded LSTs (like forwardSOL or dzSOL) while maintaining flexibility for DeFi strategies that wouldn't be possible with third-party tokens. Additionally, INF provides higher yields than most alternatives because it represents LP shares of the LST pool—holders earn normal staking rewards plus trading fees from all Sanctum-issued LST swaps. This combination has enabled Sanctum to power the majority of LSTs visible in market share data.

Why might transaction fees be abstracted away from users in 2026?

Transaction fee abstraction represents both improved user experience and competitive differentiation. On Solana, where base fees are negligible even during congestion, applications can cover gas fees while monetizing through other channels—vault fees, trading fees, or service fees. Fuse already does this today. The hosts predicted increased adoption of this approach in 2026 as applications recognize it removes unnecessary friction and improves perceived value. Carlos argued that "it's a skill issue on the side of crypto applications and wallets that they still charge gas fees to transact," suggesting that sophisticated applications will use fee abstraction as a competitive weapon while monetizing users through less visible mechanisms.