Solana took over New York this week. At the Accelerate conference, big names dropped big news: new infrastructure, new protocols, and yes, tokenized equities. Kraken made it official: stocks are coming onchain (on Solana, to be precise). More on that below.

And while builders were demoing Layer 1 innovation in Manhattan, the — let’s say — more colorful part of the industry headed to Washington, where Trump hosted a private dinner with his top 220 memecoin holders yesterday. No livestream, thankfully.

Here’s what else we’re covering today:

• Bitcoin crosses $111,000

• FIFA builds on Avalanche

• New Solana protocol promises 100x faster finality

Bitcoin has reached a new all-time high, trading above $111,000. That alone would be newsworthy — but what makes this rally stand out is when it's happening. While U.S. stocks dropped this week and bond yields surged past 5% after a weak Treasury auction, Bitcoin kept climbing. Even gold lost ground. And suddenly, Bitcoin is acting less like a tech stock — and more like a safe haven.

Some point to crypto regulation as the reason for the rally, but that doesn’t hold up. The current U.S. legislation mainly targets stablecoins, and institutions already have ways to invest in BTC. What seems more relevant is the broader shift in market sentiment: rising concern about the U.S. debt load, turbulence in Japan’s bond market, and signs that confidence in traditional assets is starting to waver.

That doesn’t mean Bitcoin is immune to setbacks. If markets slide deeper into risk-off mode, crypto likely won’t be spared. But it does suggest the narrative is evolving.

Whether that holds depends on what comes next. But for now, BTC is doing something few expected: it’s rising while everything else stumbles.

Kraken Announces Tokenized Equities on Solana

Tokenized equity: Yesterday, Kraken announced it will launch tokenized versions of more than 50 U.S. stocks and ETFs — including Apple, Tesla and Nvidia — in partnership with Backed Finance. Branded xStocks, the tokens will settle on Solana and be offered to clients in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia; U.S. residents are excluded.

The details:

• 1:1 backing: Each xStock token is fully backed by a real share of the underlying security, held with regulated custodians.

• Redeemable: Tokens can be exchanged for the cash value of the underlying security at any time, keeping prices in line with traditional markets

• 24/7 trading: Like crypto, tokenized stocks can be traded around the clock — even when traditional equity markets are closed.

Open finance: Issued as SPL tokens, xStocks can leave Kraken, sit in self-custody wallets and flow into DeFi, where they may serve as collateral or trade on DEXs — turning traditional equities into composable onchain building blocks beyond the limits of traditional brokerage accounts.

• “You want to take your capital outside your border anywhere you want and do something with it. It doesn’t have to happen on our platform. It can happen on Coinbase, Binance or any DEX. It should be available to everyone.” said Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi.

Backed by Backed: The infrastructure behind xStocks comes from Backed Finance, a Swiss-based tokenization firm with years of experience in real-world asset tokenization. Each token is transparently backed 1:1, with onchain attestations provided via Chainlink’s proof-of-reserve protocol.

All-in-one platform: xStocks are the latest addition to Kraken’s broader push beyond crypto. One month ago, the exchange began rolling out stock trading for over 11,000 U.S.-listed equities in select states. Kraken also announced the acquisition of NinjaTrader, a U.S.-based retail futures brokerage.

Next steps: Kraken says the first xStocks will go live within weeks, with a broader asset roster and additional jurisdictions to follow.

New Solana Protocol Promises 100x Faster Finality

New Protocol: At the Accelerate conference in New York, Solana R&D firm Anza introduced Alpenglow, a new consensus protocol designed to make the network dramatically faster and more efficient.

• Why it matters: It’s the most significant upgrade to Solana’s core architecture to date, aiming to reduce time to finality by more than 100x.

Status quo: Today, transactions on Solana are confirmed in roughly 400 milliseconds through “optimistic confirmation.” But true finality — the point at which transactions become irreversible — takes longer. That delay currently averages around 12.8 seconds.

The promise: With Alpenglow, true finality could drop to as low as 100 milliseconds. “A median latency of 150 ms doesn’t just mean Solana is fast — it means Solana can compete with Web2 infrastructure in terms of responsiveness”, the Anza team wrote in their blog post.

• Important caveat: These numbers are based on simulations and exclude compute overhead, meaning actual latency on mainnet could end up being higher. Still, even if finality were twice as high, Solana would remain the fastest Layer 1 on the market, surpassing Sui’s 400-millisecond finality.

Cost savings: In addition to that, Alpenglow also eliminates onchain vote transactions, currently a major source of network traffic and validator cost. This shift lowers the barrier to entry for new validators and reduces operational overhead across the network.

Outlook: While no official rollout date has been announced, Anza’s Head of Research Roger Wattenhofer noted that Alpenglow could go live "as early as the end of this year or early next year".