Why Every Major Payment Brand Is Building on Solana

Western Union goes live

Sheraz Shere pointed to Western Union as the latest example. The company announced its stablecoin at Money 2020 and has now gone live with it on Solana. "They're a 170 year old company who in six months basically did a startup sprint," Shere said.

He says any fintech or financial institution that moves money across borders is either working aggressively on stablecoins or scoping pilots and builds beyond them. In his view this is a different moment from anything he saw over the last five years: companies are building and launching, not only piloting.

From NFTs to financial rails

Sheraz Shere has spent five years at Solana Labs and then the Solana Foundation in a similar role. When he started, he says, activity was focused on consumer apps and NFTs, but he always saw blockchains as financial infrastructure. He describes the Foundation as the neutral infrastructure that companies build on, and points to protocol primitives such as confidential transfers.

Beyond remittances

According to Shere, the first cross-border use case on Solana was simple remittances. Apps holding users' digital dollars then added cards and yield, and he sees tokenized equities and bonds as the next categories. He groups the opportunity into payments and internet capital markets, meaning issuing and trading assets.

Room for builders

Sheraz Shere expects a "tsunami of activity on chain" and says a cohort of builders, including bridges and neobanks, is waiting to build solutions around it. He added that if the Clarity legislation comes through, it could give those builders more wind in their sails.