Delphi Digital is betting that Solana’s next major upgrade cycle will reposition the network as an “exchange grade” environment capable of supporting onchain order books that can realistically contend with centralized venues on latency, liquidity depth, and market structure. In a Jan. 20 post on X titled “2026 is the Year of Solana”, the research firm argued Solana’s 2026 roadmap is its “most aggressive upgrade cycle” yet, one that “overhaul[s] everything from consensus to infrastructure to become the decentralized Nasdaq.”

Why Delphi Digital Calls 2026 “The Year Of Solana”

Delphi framed the roadmap less as a grab bag of performance enhancements and more as a capital-markets push: “Solana’s roadmap is about transforming it into an exchange grade environment where a native onchain CLOB can viably compete with CEX latency, liquidity depth, and fairness. Here are all the upgrades making this possible.” In that view, shaving milliseconds matters only insofar as it produces predictable, enforceable execution outcomes for applications like high-frequency trading and central limit order books.

The centerpiece, Delphi wrote, is Alpenglow, a consensus redesign it called “the most significant protocol level change in Solana’s history.” The firm said Alpenglow introduces a new architecture built around Votor and Rotor, with Votor changing how validators reach agreement. Rather than “chaining multiple voting rounds together,” validators would aggregate votes offchain and “commit to finality in one or two rounds,” producing “theoretical finality in the 100-150 millisecond range, down from the original 12.8 seconds.”

Delphi emphasized Votor’s parallel finalization paths as a resilience feature, not just a speed play. If a block gets “overwhelming support (80%+ stake)” it finalizes immediately; if support is between 60% and 80%, a second round triggers, and finality follows if that also clears 60%. The goal, Delphi argued, is to preserve finality even with unresponsive segments of the network.

Alpenglow also introduces what Delphi called a “20+20” resilience model: safety holds as long as no more than 20% of stake is malicious, while liveness persists even if another 20% is offline, “tolerat[ing] up to 40% of the network being either malicious or inactive while still maintaining finality.” Under this design, Proof of History is “effectively deprecated,” replaced by deterministic slot scheduling and local timers. Delphi said the upgrade is expected to roll out in early to mid 2026.

Delphi also pointed to Firedancer, Jump’s C++ validator client, as a structural upgrade aimed at reducing a long-standing operational risk. Solana has historically relied on a single client, now known as Agave, and Delphi described that “monoculture” as a central weakness because client-level faults can cascade into broader network halts.

Firedancer’s objective, Delphi said, is a deterministic, high-throughput engine that can process “millions of TPS with minimal latency variance.” Ahead of full readiness, Delphi highlighted “Frankendancer,” a transitional build that combines Firedancer’s networking and block production modules with Agave’s runtime and consensus components, as a bridge to “substantially” increased client diversity.

On infrastructure, Delphi spotlighted DoubleZero as a private fiber overlay for validators, likening its transmission profile to traditional exchange connectivity: “the same infrastructure traditional exchanges like Nasdaq and CME rely on for microsecond level transmission.” The argument is that as validator sets expand, propagation variance becomes the enemy of tight finality windows. By routing messages along “optimal paths” and supporting multicast delivery, Delphi said DoubleZero can narrow latency gaps across validators—an enabler for both Votor’s quorum formation and Rotor’s propagation design.

Delphi also framed Solana’s block-building roadmap as a market-structure project. It described Jito’s BAM (Block Assembly Marketplace) as separating ordering from execution via a marketplace and privacy layer, with transactions ingested into TEEs so “neither validators nor builders can see raw transaction content before ordering takes effect,” reducing pre-execution behavior like frontrunning.

Harmonic, meanwhile, targets builder competition by introducing an open aggregation layer so validators can accept proposals from “multiple competing builders in real time,” with Delphi summarizing: “Think of Harmonic as a meta-market and BAM as a micro-market.”

Raiku rounds out the thesis by adding deterministic latency and programmable execution guarantees adjacent to Solana’s validator set, using Ahead-of-Time (AOT) transactions for pre-committed workflows and Just-in-Time (JIT) transactions for real-time needs—without modifying L1 consensus.

Delphi ultimately tied the technical roadmap to market demand: Solana’s spot trading gravity, the consolidation of onchain perps toward a handful of venues, and the need to reach performance parity with centralized platforms. It cited expectations for “new Solana native perps like Bulk Trade coming early next year,” and pointed to products like xStocks bringing “onchain equities directly to Solana,” arguing that liquidity and attention are consolidating toward a chain with faster settlement, better UX, and denser capital.

At press time, SOL traded at $127.

Over the weekend, Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko pushed back on Vitalik Buterin’s latest case for Ethereum “ossification,” arguing that for Solana, continuous protocol iteration is not optional, it is survival.

The exchange was sparked by a Jan. 12 post in which Buterin said “Ethereum itself must pass the walkaway test,” framing Ethereum as a base layer that should remain usable even if the community largely stops making substantive protocol changes.

“It must support applications that are more like tools […] than like services that lose all functionality once the vendor loses interest in maintaining them,” Buterin wrote. “But building such applications is not possible on a base layer which itself depends on ongoing updates from a vendor in order to continue being usable […] Hence, Ethereum itself must pass the walkaway test.”

Why Solana Can’t Afford To Ossify

Yakovenko replied that he “actually think[s] fairly differently on this,” laying out a philosophy that treats adaptability as core to Solana’s value proposition. “Solana needs to never stop iterating,” he wrote. “It shouldn’t depend on any single group or individual to do so, but if it ever stops changing to fit the needs of its devs and users, it will die.” In Yakovenko’s framing, the risk is not merely technical stagnation; it is a network losing relevance to the people building and transacting on it.

Buterin’s “walkaway test” rests on the idea that Ethereum should reach a point where its usefulness does not “strictly depend on any features that are not in the protocol already,” even if the ecosystem continues improving via client optimizations and limited parameter changes. He also sketched a set of medium-term protocol objectives, ranging from quantum resistance and scalable architecture to long-lived state design and decentralization safeguards, aimed at making Ethereum robust “for decades” and reducing the need for frequent disruptive upgrades.

Yakovenko’s critique is less about those specific goals than the premise that a base layer should aspire to being able to “ossify if we want to.” In his view, ossification is not a neutral milestone; it risks locking in a protocol that can’t keep pace with developer and user demands. “To not die requires to always be useful,” he wrote. “So the primary goal of protocol changes should be to solve a dev or user problem.” At the same time, he emphasized prioritization over maximalism: “That doesn’t mean solve every problem, in fact, saying no to most problems is necessary.”

A key overlap in both positions is a skepticism toward dependence on a single “vendor,” though they operationalize it differently. Buterin wants Ethereum’s base layer to become sufficiently complete that it can remain dependable even if the upgrade cadence slows dramatically. Yakovenko, by contrast, argues that Solana should assume upgrades will keep coming, but not necessarily from any one core team.

“You should always count on there being a next version of solana, just not necessarily from Anza or Labs or fd,” he wrote, referencing major entities in Solana’s development orbit. He then pointed to a future where governance and funding mechanisms could directly underwrite that work, suggesting “we are likely to end up in a world where a SIMD vote pays for the GPUs that write the code,” a nod to both on-chain coordination and the growing role of AI-assisted development.

At press time, SOL traded at $133.84.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP are at the center of a clear capital rotation unfolding across the crypto market, as investors scale back exposure to the largest assets while reallocating capital into selective alternatives. The latest CoinShares Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly Report (Volume 268) captures this shift through hard fund-flow data, highlighting deliberate institutional repositioning.

Bitcoin And Ethereum See Heavy Withdrawals As Capital Rotates

Digital asset investment products recorded $454 million in net outflows over the latest reporting week, a move linked to weakening expectations for near-term US Federal Reserve rate cuts. As macro conditions tightened, capital moved defensively, pressuring risk assets across the board.

Bitcoin accounted for the overwhelming share of redemptions. BTC investment products saw $405 million in outflows, reinforcing the idea that investors are reducing exposure where liquidity is deepest and allocations are largest. Ethereum followed with $116 million in outflows, confirming that selling pressure remains concentrated in core holdings rather than across the entire asset class.

The regional breakdown sharpens this picture. The United States recorded $569 million in outflows, making it the dominant source of capital withdrawal during the week. In contrast, other regions remained selectively constructive. Germany posted $58.9 million in inflows, while Canada added $24.5 million and Switzerland recorded $21 million, pointing to regional divergence rather than a synchronized global retreat.

Flows by product and provider further reinforce this trend. Multi-asset investment products saw $21 million in outflows, indicating reduced appetite for broad crypto exposure. Binance-linked products lost $3.7 million, while Aave-related products recorded $1.7 million in outflows, showing that pressure extended beyond just Bitcoin and Ethereum-linked vehicles.

Solana And XRP Capture Inflows Amid Market Repositioning

While headline flows were negative, capital did not exit crypto entirely. Instead, it rotated. XRP led alternative asset inflows with $45.8 million, standing out as the strongest performer during the week. Solana followed closely with $32.8 million in inflows, continuing a pattern of steady institutional accumulation.

These inflows are notable because they occurred during a week of broad net outflows, suggesting intentional reallocation rather than indiscriminate risk-off behavior. Investors appeared willing to maintain crypto exposure, but only where they perceived stronger relative upside or differentiated fundamentals. Solana’s inflows reflect confidence in its ecosystem growth and transaction throughput, while XRP’s gains point to improving sentiment around its positioning and use-case clarity.

Smaller assets also saw selective interest. Sui recorded $7.6 million in inflows, reinforcing the theme that capital is being redeployed with precision rather than withdrawn wholesale.

The numbers draw a clear conclusion. Bitcoin and Ethereum are increasingly treated as macro-sensitive anchors within crypto portfolios, absorbing most of the downside when conditions tighten. Solana and XRP, by contrast, are emerging as tactical allocation targets. If this rotation persists, market leadership could shift away from incumbents toward assets perceived to offer better capital efficiency, reshaping short-term market structure without undermining crypto’s broader institutional footprint.

Solana’s price has delivered a slight rebound as the broader crypto market gradually shifts towards a bullish outlook. Although the price of SOL may be demonstrating strength once again, its future trajectory is largely tied to the performance of the leading network in the days ahead.

Network Performance Becomes The Key Catalyst For Solana’s Price

Following a slight bounce on Monday, Solana is back above the $140 price mark. However, on-chain data suggests that the altcoin is nearing a turning point where its next significant price change may depend more on how well its network functions going forward than on market sentiment.

This thesis was outlined by Santiment, a leading market intelligence and on-chain data platform, after examining the correlation between SOL’s current price movement and its network activity. With price spikes coinciding with reduced network activity, the focus is now on the blockchain’s ability to maintain that momentum.

Santiment highlighted that as ongoing market volatility cools off, the price of SOL experienced a leg up as high as $144, drawing dangerously close to breaking past its $145 resistance level. While the price remains below the key resistance level, the altcoin awaits its next major catalyst in order to clear this level.

According to the on-chain platform, this will mostly depend on whether SOL network growth can start to increase once more, drawing attention to its fading new wallet creation. Data shows that the number of new wallet addresses created in a weekly timeframe has dropped significantly over the last few weeks.

In contrast to the prior optimistic moments, when new addresses were generated at record rates, accompanied by soaring trading and meme-coin activity, the slowdown represents a significant change.

As of November 2024, the number of weekly wallet addresses created was approximately 30.2 million. Fast forward to today, and the figure has fallen sharply, sitting at about 7.3 million. This massive drop in wallet creation signals a growing cooling phase in user onboarding across the SOL network. 

SOL Maintaining Large Daily Transactions

New wallet addresses may have reduced significantly, but Solana’s transaction scale remains robust. Despite fluctuations in the overall market momentum, SOL maintains a remarkably high level of daily transactions, demonstrating the power of its network.

In a recent report from Solana Daily on the X platform, it was revealed that the network has persistently carried out more than 60 million transactions every day for the past 750 days. This consistency demonstrates the chain’s widespread use in Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), payments, and high-throughput applications that depend on its affordability and speed.

An interesting aspect of this growth is that the network has maintained zero uptime within the timeframe, reinforcing its position as a reliable hub for on-chain activity. Currently, Solana is supported by real usage rather than just speculative spikes, which increases network efficiency.

Solana’s price action is sending a clear message: the correction may not be finished yet. While buyers continue to show up at key levels, the broader structure still points to the possibility of one final downside test before a sustainable move higher can take shape. 

Wave IV Still Unfinished As C-Wave Pressure Persists

Crypto analyst More Crypto Online, in a recent update, explained that Solana’s chart structure still points to the possibility of another downside move before the ongoing correction is fully completed. Within the orange scenario, price action continues to align with a C-wave decline in a broader wave IV correction, keeping the corrective outlook valid as long as the structure remains non-impulsive.

Even when viewed through the alternative white scenario, the current pullback can still be classified as an A-wave, which leaves room for another low before a B-wave recovery begins or before a potential fifth wave to the upside develops. In both interpretations, the analyst noted that the correction may not yet be finished.

From a short-term perspective, the chart suggests that Solana could drift lower into the $81 to $90 region. Currently, there are no clear structural signals indicating an immediate bullish continuation, as the absence of impulsive upside movement keeps downside scenarios firmly in play.

However, if prices were to turn higher from current levels without setting a new low, the broader structure since January 2025 would start to resemble a triangular consolidation rather than a completed wave IV. This alternative setup would imply extended sideways movement instead of a rapid trend resumption. Until stronger upside momentum appears, the focus remains on the risk of one more corrective low.

Controlled Reaction At The 50% Fibonacci Signals Solana Buyer Strength

AltCoin Việt Nam stated that Solana’s current price action is showing a strong and reassuring reaction around the 50% Fibonacci level. Instead of breaking down aggressively, the price has been rebounding in a controlled manner, suggesting that buyers are still maintaining influence. From a wave-structure perspective, wave IV does not appear to be rushing toward completion, leaving room for wave C to extend further if the market continues to move in line with the broader rhythm.

Adding to the bullish bias is the ongoing ETF narrative surrounding Solana. Spot SOL inflows are not arriving in a FOMO-driven manner, but rather through steady accumulation across several sessions. This type of capital flow often reflects longer-term positioning rather than short-term speculation, which explains why the price tends to rebound quickly whenever it revisits key support zones.

That said, the outlook is not without invalidation. A sustained move below the 50% Fibonacci level would signal that the current structure has broken down. However, the analyst views the recent pauses as temporary breathers within a broader upward structure, rather than the beginning of a meaningful downtrend.