The year 2025 marked a period of consolidation for major layer-1 networks, laying the groundwork for improved tooling, technology, and interoperability, as well as advancing real-world financial use cases. For Ethereum, this meant a significant increase in institutional adoption and steady progress in scaling, with a growing focus on interoperability as a key challenge heading into 2026.
Meanwhile, Solana concentrated on stress-testing its network under real demand and strengthening its infrastructure, paving the way for more complex financial use cases in the year ahead. Together, these two networks offer a glimpse into how the industry's leading platforms are positioning themselves for the next wave of adoption. This shift is important because increased institutional adoption, better interoperability, and more real-world financial use cases could influence long-term demand, yield opportunities, and the sustainability of returns tied to assets built on these networks. Ethereum's push towards interoperability in 2026 is driven by growing institutional adoption, including the emergence of spot ETFs and digital asset treasuries.
According to Mike Silagadze, co-founder of ether.fi, the network is focused on making the Ethereum mainnet more scalable, with transactions becoming increasingly affordable. Progress on layer-two interoperability has been significant, making it easier to move assets across layer twos and Ethereum. This push towards interoperability is also resonating with builders across the Ethereum ecosystem, with Alex Cutler, CEO of Dromos Labs, predicting that 2026 will be the year when siloed ecosystems come together to create a lightning-fast, cost-efficient, and truly interoperable experience for users and institutions alike. While ETFs have expanded access to ether, they fall short of exposing investors to on-chain economic activity.
Silagadze argues that digital asset treasuries fill this gap, providing exposure to DeFi and earning opportunities. Looking ahead to 2026, Silagadze hopes Ethereum's next phase will be defined by continued scaling paired with tangible, everyday utility, rather than speculative cycles. He believes real adoption will come from products that feel familiar to mainstream users but are built entirely on crypto rails, such as financial services that combine self-custody, yield, and composability. For Solana, 2025 was a year of preparation for 2026, with the network finding its footing after a volatile 2024.
Activity peaked early in the year, driven by memecoin trading that pushed the network to its limits. According to Lucas Bruder, CEO of Jito Labs, the network is now 'super buttery smooth,' with faster performance, increased capacity, and lower fees. A fresh wave of DeFi teams arrived, energized to build on Solana, and the result was a year in which Solana's long-promised role as a high-throughput financial network began to materialize.
For Jito, 2025 was defined by doubling down on infrastructure, with a focus on BAM, a product designed to make transaction sequencing more transparent. The goal is to unlock new design spaces, markets, and economies by improving transaction ordering and pricing. A key inflection point for the network is expected to arrive in 2026 with the rollout of Alpenglow, a long-anticipated upgrade to Solana's consensus mechanism. Bruder described Alpenglow as a fundamental simplification of how the network agrees on blocks, which should materially improve reliability while sharply reducing confirmation times.
This shift has significant implications for high-stakes financial activity, where fast, deterministic settlement is critical.