The Solana Foundation is stepping up its push into institutional crypto, unveiling a new developer platform and securing early participation from major financial players.
Mastercard, Worldpay, and Western Union are among the first users of the Solana Developer Platform (SDP), a unified toolkit designed to help enterprises build blockchain-based applications, particularly around tokenization and payments.
The platform is built around three core components.
Focus on tokenization and payments
An issuance module allows developers to create tokenized real-world assets, including stablecoins. A payments module supports both fiat and stablecoin transactions, while a trading module, expected later this year will introduce features such as atomic swaps, vaults, and onchain foreign exchange.
Tokenized real-world assets remain a fast-growing segment, with the market valued at roughly $328 billion, according to rwa.xyz.
Ethereum still dominates the space, while Solana accounts for a smaller share.
Early enterprise use cases
Initial partners are testing the platform across different areas of financial infrastructure. Mastercard is exploring stablecoin settlement, Worldpay is focused on merchant payments, and Western Union is looking at cross-border transfers.
Catherine Gu, head of product at the Solana Foundation, said early engagement points to demand for tools that integrate blockchain into existing financial systems.
“The early interest we’ve seen from enterprises and institutions signals strong demand,”
Mastercard executive Raj Dhamodharan described the shift as part of a broader move toward practical applications of digital assets within traditional finance. Western Union’s Malcolm Clarke said the platform complements, rather than replaces, its current network, allowing the company to expand how it handles cross-border activity.
Competition in enterprise blockchain
Solana’s move comes as competition for institutional adoption intensifies.
The Ethereum ecosystem already offers established infrastructure through Consensys’ Infura and its Linea layer-2 network, both aimed at enterprise use cases. Coinbase’s Base platform is also targeting developers with modular tools for payments and onchain applications.
Ripple continues to position the XRP Ledger as a solution for cross-border payments, directly overlapping with some of SDP’s intended use cases.
Solana has been preparing for this push with technical upgrades, including the Alpenglow update in 2025, which improved network throughput. It has also seen growing involvement from payment firms, including Visa’s earlier move to support USDC settlement on the network.
The launch of SDP signals a more direct effort to compete for institutional developers, particularly in areas where blockchain infrastructure intersects with existing financial systems.
Oleksii Shumak
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