Update (March 25, 03:05 am UTC): This article was updated to add comments from Catherine Gu.
The Solana Foundation has launched the Solana Developer Platform (SDP), positioning it as a unified interface for enterprises building on Solana’s blockchain. The foundation named Mastercard, Worldpay and Western Union as early adopters as it seeks to broaden institutional use of Solana technology.
SDP targets tokenization of real-world assets, including stablecoins — a market estimated at $328 billion by rwa.xyz. Ethereum remains the dominant chain for tokenized real-world assets, while Solana currently holds roughly 6.3% of that market.
Catherine Gu, head of product at the Solana Foundation, said early enterprise interest shows strong demand. The platform will debut with three core modules: an issuance module for deploying tokenized real-world assets, a payments module to manage fiat and stablecoin flows, and a trading module planned later this year to enable atomic swaps, vaults and on-chain foreign exchange.
Solana said Mastercard will use SDP for stablecoin settlement, Worldpay for merchant payments and settlement, and Western Union for cross-border payments. Gu told Cointelegraph the SDP can expand functionality across all three modules and that the foundation plans to grow its network of infrastructure partners and services available through the platform. She pointed to stablecoin-linked cards as a leading use case today and described Solana’s broader aim to ‘power internet capital markets,’ enabling assets to trade on-chain with internet speed and ease. Gu added that the platform will serve both enterprise and consumer use cases as the ecosystem moves to bring more assets on chain.
Solana has also pursued protocol-level upgrades to appeal to institutional users, including the planned 2025 Alpenglow upgrade intended to increase transaction throughput. In December, Visa announced USDC settlement for U.S. banks on Solana, reflecting growing payments activity on the network.
Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president of blockchain and digital assets at Mastercard, said the next phase of digital asset innovation will be driven by practical use cases that integrate with existing financial systems. Malcolm Clarke, vice president of digital assets at Western Union, said SDP is not a replacement for Western Union’s core network but creates new use cases and can expand cross-border activity.
SDP enters a competitive market of enterprise-focused blockchain services. Ethereum-based solutions such as Consensys’ Infura and the Linea layer-2 offer mature institutional tooling, Coinbase’s Base provides modular components for checkout and commerce payments, and Ripple’s products continue to target banks and cross-border payments.
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