From Mergers to Interactions: Ethereum and Solana's 2026 Strategy

2025 emerges as a consolidation phase, as major layer-1 networks focus on building tools and technology platforms to improve interoperability, while also promoting real-world financial applications. For Ethereum, this is reflected in a wave of institutional adoption and steady progress in scalability; for Solana, the focus is on “testing” the network under real demand and strengthening infrastructure. These two paths outline how leading platforms are preparing for the next wave of adoption.

This shift has long-term significance: deeper institutional participation, better interoperability, and practical financial use cases could shape sustainable demand, yield opportunities, and profit resilience associated with assets built on these networks.

Ethereum Aims for Interoperability in 2026

Ethereum’s growth in 2025 mainly comes from increased institutional involvement, from spot ETFs to the emergence of digital asset treasuries (DAT). According to Mike Silagadze, co-founder of ether.fi, protocol-level improvements are key, with the goal of making Ethereum’s layer-1 “more scalable,” as transaction costs are “very low and will continue to improve.”

Meanwhile, interoperability between layer-2 solutions — facilitating asset movement between layer-2 and Ethereum — is seen as the right direction, along with efforts to promote institutional acceptance.

This wave also resonates with builders in the ecosystem. Alex Cutler, CEO of Dromos Labs (, the team behind Aerodrome on Base), believes upcoming upgrades will mark a turning point after years of fragmentation.

“Just one word: unification,” Cutler says. “We’ve spent over five years making everything cheaper and faster, but at the cost of fragmented experiences and divided liquidity. That’s about to end.”

He states that advances in interoperability technology are laying the groundwork for a major shift in DeFi on Ethereum, and “2026 will see previously isolated ecosystems reconnect, creating fast, cost-effective, and truly interactive experiences for both users and institutions.”

While ETFs help expand access to ETH, Silagadze argues they don’t fully reflect on-chain economic activity. “ETFs give you access to assets, but don’t offer DeFi opportunities or yields,” he says, viewing DAT as a piece that fills that gap and positively impacts ETH’s price.

ETH dropped to $1,472 in April, then recovered to $4,832 in August as DATs gained popularity. Currently, ETH trades around $3,000 according to CoinMarketCap.

Looking ahead to 2026, Silagadze expects Ethereum’s next phase to be less speculative, focusing on scalability combined with practical everyday utility. Infrastructure improvements like lower fees and better interoperability are just the foundation; sustainable user growth will come from familiar products that operate entirely on crypto infrastructure but are accessible to the masses.

He emphasizes the role of crypto neobank platforms that combine self-custody, yields, and integration into a unified experience, calling for a shift away from “gambling” activities toward solving real financial problems at scale — from tokenized stocks to global banking services.

Solana Focuses on Infrastructure in 2025 to Accelerate in 2026

After a volatile 2024, Solana seems to have regained stability in 2025. Activity peaked early in the year, mainly driven by memecoin trading pushing the network to its capacity limits.

“January was truly crazy,” says Lucas Bruder, CEO of Jito Labs, as transaction volume surged and validator revenues along with DeFi protocols reached unusually high levels. This pressure helped strengthen the network.

Compared to a year ago, Solana now runs “smooth as butter,” with faster performance and greater capacity. The block space increased by about 25% in 2025, improving user experience, reducing fees, and attracting a wave of energetic DeFi teams. Bruder believes 2025 is the year Solana’s “high-throughput financial network” role begins to take shape.

“2025 is really booming; everyone is using Solana,” he says, and for the first time, the concept of a “decentralized NASDAQ” becomes tangible.

For Jito, 2025 is a year of deep infrastructure focus, especially on BAM — a product aimed at transparent transaction ordering. The goal is to open up “new design spaces, markets, and economies” by improving how transactions are ordered and priced, leading to better applications, lower costs, and superior user experiences.

A major breakthrough is expected in 2026 with Alpenglow, an anticipated upgrade to Solana’s consensus mechanism. Bruder describes Alpenglow as a fundamental simplification that revolutionizes the network’s block finalization, increasing reliability and drastically reducing confirmation times. Currently, Solana transactions take 12–13 seconds; with Alpenglow, this could drop to about one second, making transactions nearly irreversible immediately.

This is especially critical for high-value financial activities, where speed and deterministic settlement are vital. By tightening guarantees of finality and smoothing network coordination, Alpenglow will not only improve performance but also reinforce Solana’s role as infrastructure for a truly “decentralized NASDAQ.”

Vương Tiễn