President of the Solana Foundation, Lily Liu stated that her team is working on creating an “internet capital market” that would launch on-chain IPOs in the near future.
Summary
- Solana Foundation President Lily Liu announced plans to build an “internet capital market” and enable on-chain native IPOs, aiming to bridge traditional finance with blockchain technology.
- Liu also highlighted Solana’s growing role in the $307 billion stablecoin market, citing partnerships with institutions like Franklin Templeton and Western Union to expand blockchain’s applications in payments and financial infrastructure.
At the Finternet 2025 Asia Digital Finance Summit on Nov. 4, President Lily Liu talked about the possibility of opening up capital markets to blockchain technology. She revealed that Solana is currently driving the creation of what she deems the “internet capital market” which could provide wider access to liquidity and bridge the gap between traditional finance and crypto.
In addition, Liu said that the organization plans to achieve on-chain native initial public offerings within the next few years. On-chain IPOs are a more modern approach to a company going public by issuing its shares as digital tokens on a blockchain, rather than on stock exchanges or other intermediaries.
“That’s what technology does, it shortens the access required between one side of the market and the other side of the market. So I think when it comes to internet capital markets, that I think is now the new white whale for this industry,” said Liu in her on-stage interview with Chief Commercial Officer of OSL Group, Eugene Cheung.
She goes on to explain that a number of mechanisms that already exist on-chain could be optimized to accommodate a shift from the old-fashioned price discovery mechanisms in traditional finance into more modern methods. The use of blockchain technology could also make price discovery more transparent and enable security provisions like Know-Your-Customer to be applied to the process.
“And so on the price discovery side, there is actually room for innovation on capital markets access and on the distribution side it’s even more so,” she added.
While on stage, she also mentioned that the organization has been exploring collaborations with institutions from the traditional finance sector, such as Franklin Templeton and Western Union. Such collaborations are meant to deepen the blockchain’s role in payments and stablecoins. She argued that blockchain technology’s real value lies not in hype but in serving as a technological platform underpinning the financial system.
“I think our perspective on the purpose of blockchain, is that it’s tech that serves finance. And if you think about the needs of financial systems are. they’re actually pretty simple. Number one is liquidity, and in order for liquidity to be accessible it has to be fast and cheap,” said Liu.
Solana’s take on the stablecoin wave
President of the Solana (SOL) Foundation Lily Liu, commented on the stablecoin phenomenon that’s been sweeping through the global finance system. She notes that the rise of stablecoins as a payment option has been largely due to the changing regulatory landscape, with more governments like the U.S and Hong Kong warming up to stablecoins.
“Stablecoins are a topic of economic national security that has obviously gotten everyone’s attention everywhere around the world and has put blockchain infrastructure front and center on everyone’s fintech roadmap, tech investment roadmap, capital markets and payments roadmap,” said Liu in her interview.
According to data from DeFi Llama, the global stablecoin market is currently valued at $307 billion. Out of that large number, as much as $14.25 billion has been deployed on the Solana blockchain. The majority of stablecoins on Solana consists of USD Coin (USDC), which represents 64.96% on the blockchain.
Most recently, Solana’s collaboration with Western Union to launch the bank’s own stablecoin called the U.S. Dollar Payment Token or USDPT. Solana would provide the underlying blockchain infrastructure. The token will be issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, with a full rollout expected within the first half of 2026.
