Focus on Market Microstructure and Infrastructure Upgrades to Realize Decentralized Financial Vision
The Solana Foundation has published a detailed roadmap outlining its vision to make Solana the core infrastructure for global Internet Capital Markets (ICMs) by 2027. The long-term plan highlights key architectural and performance-related milestones aimed at enabling a decentralized financial ecosystem accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
The roadmap, shared with Cointelegraph on Thursday, identifies market microstructure as the most pressing challenge facing the network today and introduces a new framework known as Application-Controlled Execution (ACE) to address it.
What Are Internet Capital Markets?
The term Internet Capital Markets (ICMs) was coined by Akshay, a former core member of the Solana Foundation. ICMs envision a globally accessible ledger where entities, currencies, and cultures are tokenized, creating an open system for financial access without borders.
Solana’s original mission, according to the new roadmap, has always been to provide the decentralized backbone for such a financial system. While earlier efforts have centered on increasing bandwidth and reducing latency (IBRL), the Foundation now argues that IBRL alone is not enough to realize the ICM vision.
“The third pillar of Solana’s roadmap needs to address the intricacies of market microstructures,” the document states.
I shared some notes with the internal solana foundation team that are relevant more widely. Summary below.
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Solana Fndn 2025 Marketing MemoInternet Capital Markets and F.A.T. Protocol Engineering.
Solana’s promise is to allow anyone with an internet connection access to…
— Akshay BD (@akshaybd) November 26, 2024
Market Microstructure: The Core Challenge
The roadmap emphasizes that market microstructure—the way in which trades are organized and executed—is currently the “single most important problem in Solana.”
In traditional finance (TradFi), transaction execution is often influenced by centralized systems and intermediaries. Solana’s vision diverges sharply by advocating for Application-Controlled Execution (ACE), a system designed to give smart contracts millisecond-level control over transaction ordering.
This granular control would enable a flexible, high-performance transaction environment tailored to the unique needs of decentralized markets. According to the Foundation, ecosystem builders have now aligned around this approach, marking a significant shift in how decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure could evolve.
Short-Term Developments: Jito’s Block Assembly Marketplace
In the near term, Solana plans to launch Jito’s Block Assembly Marketplace (BAM) within the next three months. BAM is a transaction processing system designed to empower validators and traders with enhanced tools for improving network performance and value creation.
The BAM testnet is expected to go live in the coming days and represents the first tangible step toward market microstructure reform on the Solana mainnet.
Medium-Term Goals: Introducing DoubleZero Network
One of the most notable initiatives in the roadmap is the launch of DoubleZero, a dedicated peer-to-peer fiber network aimed at replacing the public internet for Solana transaction processing.
DoubleZero is already operating in testnet with over 100 validators and currently manages approximately 3% of mainnet stake. A full rollout is expected by mid-September 2025, and the Foundation sees it as a critical element in ensuring ultra-low latency and high reliability for transaction propagation.
This infrastructure development is a strategic move to reduce Solana’s dependence on the conventional internet, aiming to achieve performance levels comparable to centralized exchanges while maintaining decentralization.
Recent Upgrades and Future Enhancements
The roadmap builds on recent upgrades to the Solana network, including a 20% increase in block capacity—now supporting 60 million compute units per block. Additional throughput improvements are expected before the end of 2025 as Solana continues to optimize for high-frequency transaction environments.
The roadmap also hints at further research and development in areas such as execution latency, cross-domain atomicity, and fee markets, which are expected to play an important role in maturing Solana’s ICM infrastructure.
Toward 2027: A Decentralized Financial Backbone
The Solana Foundation’s 2027 roadmap signals a bold and technically detailed push toward making Solana the primary settlement layer for global finance. While the blockchain already boasts high throughput and low fees, the new emphasis on transaction control, custom execution logic, and dedicated network infrastructure aims to elevate Solana to an entirely new operational tier.
By addressing market microstructure and prioritizing application-level control, Solana is positioning itself not just as a blockchain, but as a decentralized financial protocol stack for the internet era.
