Solana's big plan

Good morning/evening
 
I have recently heard about Solana's plan to have a Nasdeq type equivalent on chain to trade a decentralized market for trading real world assets and equities. My first thought was wow as I have been thinking about a few stocks lately, I looked at getting Robinhood, but in my area it required KYC so I gave it a miss, if Solana could pull this off it would be great. As usual though I can find no timeline of when or how long this could take.
 
So what does an on chain Nasdeq really mean?
 
Well blockchain meets traditional finance with stock trading, asset issuance, market making and settlement on a decentralized ledger and It aims to combine the functionality and liquidity of traditional financial exchanges with the transparency, speed, and flexibility of crypto. At its core, this is about bringing capital markets on chain, tokenizing real world assets (RWAs), enabling 24/7 global trading, reducing the middlemen, and reducing settlement times from days to seconds.
 
Why Solana?
 

• High Throughput  Capable of processing over 50,000 transactions per second (TPS).
• Low Fees Transactions typically cost a fraction of a cent.
• Composability DeFi applications and trading protocols can seamlessly interact in real-time.
• Deterministic Finality Rapid settlement and confirmation make it ideal for financial applications.

Solana's architecture is optimized for scale which would be a key requirement for replicating the volume and efficiency of a traditional stock exchange.

T+2 stands for 'Trade Date plus Two' and refers to the settlement period for securities transactions. It means that when you buy or sell a security (like a stock), the transaction officially settles two business days after the trade date therefore ownership hasn't technically transferred and you won't be able to use the proceeds until it does.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a move to T+1 settlement starting May 28, 2024, which means trades will settle in one business day instead of two. (Wow, imagine a crypto transaction taking that long lol).
 

Solana's ecosystem is already home to several key projects that are moving in the right direction for this to happen.

• Drift, Phoenix, and Jupiter high-speed decentralized exchanges and aggregators that facilitate spot and derivatives trading.
• Maple Finance and Credix platforms for tokenized lending and RWAs.
• Token Extensions and SPL Standards enabling compliance, permissions, and metadata necessary for asset tokenization.
• Fireblocks, Circle, and Paxos integrating stablecoins and custody solutions to bridge institutional capital.

Additionally, Solana's partnership with major institutions and fintech players is accelerating the adoption of tokenized U.S. Treasuries, money market funds, and payment rails but it wouldn't just replicate an existing system, just think, there could be no more Monday to Friday 9-5 trading it would be 24/7 but not just for a select few, it could be for everyone.
 
Will it be easy to achieve?
Of course not, Solana's "Nasdaq on-chain" idea will have to deal with regulatory uncertainty around tokenized securities, KYC/AML compliance, and integration with existing financial institutions are major roadblocks however, with growing institutional interest and global regulatory frameworks it could be possible. 
 
 

• Early 2025: Surge in meme coin activity, with platforms like Raydium processing $16 billion in trades in a single day during the $TRUMP memecoin frenzy.
• Mid 2025: Introduction of tokenized equities on Solana, with $21 billion in real-world assets already tokenized on public blockchains.
• Late 2025: Launch of Solana futures ETFs, paving the way for increased institutional adoption.

 
There is also the reputation of Solana as a meme only gambling chain, which some know is not the case, one is chaotic, highly speculative and community driven the other is regulated, orderly, and compliance heavy. But in Solana’s case, both sides benefit from the same core strengths, fast transactions, low fees, and high throughput, the same infrastructure that allows a million meme trades per minute can also support an on-chain order book for real world assets, it is like Solana has had it's stress test, but can they coexist? Institutional players don’t want to share space with rug pulls and gambling, even if the tech is great.
 

My thoughts
 
I am a big fan of Solana, so to me this sounds great and I like the idea of trading stocks alongside crypto (hopefully without the dreaded KYC). If it is as simple to use as most of the Dapps and protocols on Solana that would also be an advantage. It would make Solana even more of a 'one stop shop' but that could also be what makes it lose some of the appeal, would people use a Nasdeq type trading platform when all they see are the pump fun rug pulls? 

I do not have the tech skills to understand if this is really possible to do, but if it is and Solana makes this work, it could be a game changer IMO.
 
What are your thoughts? Do you think this is a possibility or just a pipe dream? Would you use something like this? As always thank you for reading and please feel free to comment.