Get the latest news and updates on FINTECH.TV

Solayer Targets Real-Time Financial Markets Following Mainnet Alpha Launch

December 19, 2025

Video Transcript

Hi everyone, we're here at Salana Breakpoint in Abu Dhabi, and I'm very excited to be sitting with Joshua Sum, who's the head of product at Salaya.

Joshua, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me here.

So firstly, congratulations on your main net launch just a few days ago.

Great achievement.

And before we talk more specifically about that, tell me a little bit about the evolution of financial market infrastructure.

Um, I guess like, um, it's been evolving over the years and it started first on like digitizing all of that, and then T + 2, T + 1. at least the way we think about it is that it's not gonna be T + 0, it's not like we don't really minus 1 and just keep going from there.

It's gonna be, um, more real-time in the future.

So if something happens, it merely reflects, um, on the financial service and like the infrastructure.

But, um, To do that, we actually have to build a lot of the infrastructure from scratch, because a lot of the manual processes and systems in place, middle man as well, makes um moving from T+1 to T+0 in real-time almost impossible.

So you actually have to re-engineer the entire stack so that when something happens, you actually see that like in real time.

And so the original premise of Salaya then was it to, Build the infrastructure to enable to facilitate that.

Yeah, yeah, so that, that's the main thesis behind, um, so later we're building out a really real-time, like low latency uh chain, and the infrastructure is built on top of a lot of um learnings and techniques that the industry has learned from the AI like distributed training space.

New technologies has come out of there from high frequency training as well.

We've been taking a lot of those like learnings and then building it into our products so that we can process.

Insane amounts of throughput, um, and support the kind of applications that we're seeing in the traditional financial world, yeah.

I did read that it was up to 300,000 transactions per second that would be unlocked.

What will the implications of that be?

Yeah, I think, um, transactions per second is something that we were very much, um, looking at as well, so we were looking to kind of push that from, I do think that we are probably the one or the only chains out there that can do um this level of throughput.

Um, there are, there are a lot of other chains as well that are looking to say that, hey, we're doing a million transactions per second, but, um, depends on the workload.

So, um, sometimes it's just a native token transfer, which is a lot easier to accomplish, um, to get a million transactions per second that way.

But the real-world transactions that we actually see, things like swaps, lending, borrowing, actually it's a lot more messy, and that's where it might actually slow things down if you actually try to run these real benchmarks.

Um, for our, our kind of benchmarks that we ran for the chain is actually, we try to do it as realistic as possible, so we're running swaps and all kinds of different transactions.

We're throwing these, um, esoteric transactions at the wall and we are pushing 300,000 real operations and transactions on chain.

So, yeah, it's a bit of a hard take, but we, we do think that we're the fastest chain in production right now.

Um, but beyond just transactions per second, we're also looking at, um, latency and also more about the UIUX and the processing of how that's being done.

Where a lot of, even like you can have a lot of transactions per second, but the experience could still feel like a back and forth.

So it's really fast, but you gotta check and then it's a, you need a human intervention in the middle, and that can still feel a bit more slow on the UX even though on, on paper it feels fast.

So, a quick example I tend to use is, Say you have email, right?

We used to be like you send an OTP to your email and then you click refresh you're like, is it done?

I don't know.

And then you check again and you're like, oh let me hit this button a couple of times.

It's a great example, yeah, so in that like even though the email might be sent really fast or like the latency might be low, but you're like that that human effort feels different and then it feels slow, uh, even if it's fast on paper in the same way I think like crypto and like the blockchain in general has evolved in a, oh, we post a transaction.

And we, we pull the chain and it's like, hey, is it done?

Is it done?

Is it done?

Oh, it's confirmed.

OK, now we, then we can do all the other stuff, right?

Um, and that's where we're looking to help evolve the transaction, I guess the, the underlying infrastructure so that we have callbacks and things where transaction goes out and almost instantly we know, oh, is it done?

Yeah, and then that enables a lot of like complete changes on the UI and um the user experience where people send a transaction and they know that it's done.

Um, without having to ask them, is it that, is it that, right, so yeah, reduce follow-up from, from the user.

And so you've obviously just had your main net launch, that's very exciting, that was just a few days ago.

What's next for you, both what you hope to achieve from that main net and then looking forward a little bit further, maybe 1 year, 2 years?

Yeah, so I mean 300,000 transactions per second, that's um our start where we are currently at.

We're looking to push that to a million, so it's gonna be even faster.

Um, latency as well we're gonna push it even lower, um.

In terms of the ecosystem we are, we launched our accelerator program, um, a while back, investing in startups building like a new design space of apps, right, so things that have not been tested and built before, but this infrastructure finally allows.

So we have 3 teams building on us right now on, on the accelerator program side and we're all building more teams outside of the accelerator as well.

Um, and last week we also announced an ecosystem fund, so it's a $35 million ecosystem fund.

We're gonna start investing heavily in Starbucks building on our chain.

Um, and then beyond that there's a lot more exciting products that we might be building as well, um, and definitely stay tuned on our socials, um, as well as whenever we release these products and as they go ourselves, um, all that's gonna be online on our, on our socials.

Amazing, well, thank you for all the work that you're doing, not only within the sort of capital markets infrastructure space, but also building up the ecosystem, so I appreciate you coming on the show, Joshua.

Yes, happy to be here, thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Solayer real-time financial infrastructure is emerging as a focal point in the evolution of global markets, according to Joshua Sum, head of product at Solayer, who spoke during the Solana Breakpoint conference in Abu Dhabi following the successful launch of Solayer’s Mainnet Alpha. His remarks outlined how the company is positioning its technology to transform transaction processing and infrastructure design across blockchain, cryptocurrency, and sustainable finance.

At the core of Solayer’s thesis is the need for financial infrastructure capable of supporting real-time settlement. Sum explained that legacy systems and manual workflows have historically slowed global markets, creating delays that are increasingly incompatible with modern financial demands. Moving from traditional settlement cycles such as T+2 and T+1 toward T+0, he said, is essential—but achieving that shift requires a fundamental reengineering of existing market structures.

Solayer is building a low-latency blockchain designed to process extremely high transaction volumes. The network has already demonstrated the ability to handle approximately 300,000 transactions per second, placing it among a small group of blockchains capable of supporting real-world financial activity such as swaps and lending. By incorporating expertise drawn from artificial intelligence and high-frequency trading, Solayer is positioning itself not as a niche protocol, but as a serious contender in next-generation financial market infrastructure.

User experience remains a critical focus of the platform’s development. Sum emphasized the importance of reducing the human effort often associated with transaction confirmations in crypto. By pairing backend performance with improved UI and UX design, Solayer aims to deliver transactions that feel instantaneous to users. He compared the challenge to waiting on email confirmations—technically fast, but perceptually slow—highlighting the need to align system speed with user expectations.

Following the Mainnet Alpha launch, Solayer has outlined an ambitious roadmap. The company plans to scale throughput to one million transactions per second and deploy a $35 million ecosystem fund to support startups building applications on the network. An accelerator program is also in development, designed to attract teams using Solayer’s infrastructure to introduce new financial solutions.

As blockchain and cryptocurrency markets continue to evolve, Solayer’s approach to real-time financial systems is drawing attention from sectors focused on sustainability, impact investing, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. With significant venture backing and a commitment to ecosystem development, the company is positioning itself at the intersection of finance, technology, and long-term economic efficiency.

Ultimately, Sum’s vision extends beyond raw performance metrics. Solayer’s mission centers on modernizing financial systems to meet the demands of real-time global markets. With its Mainnet Alpha now live, the company is emerging as a foundational layer for faster, more efficient, and more transparent financial infrastructure.

Latest articles

Related articles