Bitwise CIO: Institutional investors are turning to Solana, driven by four factors surpassing Ethereum.

Golden Finance reports that Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise, stated that Solana is gradually becoming an asset favored by “alpha seekers”. Institutions regard it as a “challenger asset” to Ethereum, with four key factors driving large investors' preference for Solana.

1. The pragmatic attitude of “landing first, optimizing later” Hu Gen stated that Solana has established a reputation for “acting swiftly and prioritizing implementation over perfection.” While Ethereum may spend years debating upgrade proposals, Solana launches products first and optimizes them through real-time iterations — this efficient pace of advancement is attracting institutions that are weary of Ethereum's “prolonged roadmap.”
2. Take a leading position in the tokenization field Hugen pointed out that Solana has become the preferred blockchain for “equity tokenization”: numerous real-world asset (RWA) projects prioritize Solana over other competitors when choosing underlying infrastructure. “Solana is in a leading position in the competition for equity tokenization,” he emphasized.
3. High Staking Yield Attractiveness Institutions tend to let assets “generate passive income,” and blockchains like Solana and Ethereum that are “staking-enabled” perfectly meet this demand — among them, Solana's staking services stand out. Data shows that over 81% of SOL tokens (worth about $51 billion) on the Solana network have been staked; in contrast, only 27% of ETH is staked on the Ethereum network. More importantly, the annualized staking yield for Solana is around 7%, allowing institutions to enjoy potential price appreciation of the tokens while also receiving a stable passive income; whereas the annualized staking yield for Ethereum is only about 3%.
4. Greater growth potential The last factor is related to Solana's “scale size.” Hu Gen believes that one of the core reasons institutions are interested in Solana is that its scale is much smaller than Ethereum, thus possessing greater growth potential. “It is precisely because its size is much smaller than Ethereum that Solana has more room for upward movement,” he explained.