The Solana Foundation has appointed Rachel Conlan as its new chief strategy officer and Jamal Raees as general manager for payments. According to reports from CoinDesk, Conlan previously spent three years at Binance, most recently serving as global chief marketing officer before leaving in June. Raees joins from Polygon Labs and brings experience from stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge (now part of Stripe) and crypto payments firm Wyre. As per the Solana Foundation, Conlan will lead strategy covering institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and efforts to bring more companies and users onto Solana, while Raees will work with payment firms and enterprises seeking to use the network as payment infrastructure. The foundation made this announcement on September 24, 2026, with these new hires expected to help secure partnerships with banks, asset managers, and payment companies as the financial sector increasingly shifts towards blockchain technology.
The appointments align with Solana's strategy to court traditional financial institutions building with stablecoins, payments, tokenized funds and other real-world assets. According to the Solana Foundation, Conlan's role will cover the foundation's institutional strategy as more financial companies test or deploy products on Solana. She emphasized building institutional relationships and helping businesses move "from interest to implementation," with her appointment coming after several institutional projects brought tokenized securities, funds and other financial assets onto the network. The foundation has attracted roughly $348 million in net distributed real world asset flows over a 30-day period measured in early September, while the value of distributed RWAs on the network reached approximately $4.23 billion. The network hosted products from firms including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, VanEck, Circle, Ondo Finance and WisdomTree.
The network has demonstrated significant growth in tokenized assets, with tokenized assets reaching $4.5 billion according to RWA.xyz, including more than $620 million in tokenized equity supply according to Allium data. According to the Solana Foundation, real world assets on the network have passed $4.5 billion, while tokenized equity supply has crossed $620 million. These figures highlight the growing institutional adoption of blockchain-based financial infrastructure. Ondo Finance brought hundreds of tokenized U.S. stocks and exchange traded funds to Solana earlier this year, while other asset managers have used the network for tokenized Treasury and investment products. Institutional adoption has expanded globally, with SBI Global Asset Management and DigiFT launching a tokenized Japanese equity fund on Solana in July.
Raees will focus on payment companies, enterprises and ecosystem participants building payment services around Solana. As reported by the Solana Foundation, he pointed to Solana's performance, reliability and developer ecosystem as areas that could support payment services at global scale. The foundation launched a developer platform in March designed for financial institutions and enterprises working with stablecoins, tokenized assets and payment flows, with Mastercard, Western Union and Worldpay joining as early users. MoneyGram later became a Solana validator and joined the same institutional developer platform as part of its blockchain payments strategy. Payment trials have reached Asian markets, with South Korean payment processor KSNet and the Solana Foundation testing Solana Pay for merchant payments, while Shinhan Card worked with the foundation on a stablecoin payment proof of concept using Solana's testnet.
Japan has become another focus of the foundation's institutional strategy following a partnership with SBI Holdings announced in July. Under the agreement, the Solana Foundation joined SBI R3 Japan alongside SBI Holdings and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, with plans for the company to operate under the SBI Solana Global name following required corporate processes. The SBI Solana partnership covers stablecoins, tokenized assets, cross border payments and institutional onchain services, with payment systems for AI agents listed among planned business areas. SBI's work with Solana expanded into tokenized securities, with its asset management arm launching the JX token with DigiFT, while SBI later partnered with Ondo Finance to bring tokenized Japanese stocks into its financial ecosystem and use its yen-backed JPYSC stablecoin for settlement and collateral.
The foundation has pursued innovative payment models at the intersection of stablecoins and artificial intelligence. In May, Solana Foundation and Google Cloud rolled out Pay.sh, a payment gateway that lets AI agents use stablecoins to pay for individual API requests. The system allows agents to access services including Gemini, BigQuery and Vertex AI through a Solana wallet without relying on conventional subscriptions for each service. Pay.sh was designed to support payments as small as fractions of a cent and uses an API proxy on Google Cloud, with the Solana wallet functioning as both a payment and identity layer. More than 50 community API providers were supported when the service was introduced.
SOL has shown strong price recovery following the leadership appointments, with the token trading around $124 according to latest CoinGecko data, up roughly +2.7% over the past 24 hours and 14.5% over the last seven days. The token's market capitalization stands at approximately $73 billion, making it one of the largest cryptocurrencies by value. The recent rebound has strengthened SOL's short-term technical picture, with the token recovering from below $100 earlier this month. CoinGecko's historical data shows SOL closing at $122.08 on September 25, highlighting the strength of the latest move. At current levels, $120 represents an important psychological support zone, while a sustained move above $125 could put $130 into focus, with $140 potentially becoming the next significant resistance area. With SOL still approximately -58% below its $293.31 all-time high, the token has substantial ground to recover if broader market momentum remains bullish.
