Binance, Polygon Talent Joins Solana’s Ranks
The Solana Foundation has strengthened its executive team with two major hires aimed at accelerating institutional adoption and tokenized finance. Rachel Conlan, who previously served as global chief marketing officer at Binance for three years, is stepping in as Solana’s new chief strategy officer. Alongside her, Jamal Raees—formerly of Polygon Labs and payments firms Bridge and Wyre—has joined as general manager of payments. Both appointments were announced as part of a broader effort to drive ecosystem growth and deepen relationships with traditional financial players.
Conlan’s background extends beyond crypto exchanges; she held senior roles at OKX, CAA Sports, and Havas before joining Binance. Raees brings experience from both the crypto-native world and fintech, having worked at Bridge (now part of Stripe) and Wyre in addition to his tenure at Polygon Labs. The Foundation is tasking both with expanding Solana’s appeal to enterprises—especially those exploring tokenized assets and blockchain-based payment rails.
Tokenized assets on Solana surpassed $4.5 billion in 2024, with over $600 million attributed to tokenized stocks, according to RWA.xyz.
Solana Eyes Wall Street With New Hires
Solana’s renewed focus on institutional partnerships comes as the network processes unprecedented volumes: over $5 trillion in stablecoin transactions have moved across Solana so far this year, according to Allium data cited in several industry reports.
Tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) on Solana now total more than $4.5 billion, including upwards of $600 million in tokenized stocks. These figures highlight a growing appetite among institutions for blockchain-based representations of traditional assets—a trend that Conlan is expected to capitalize on in her new role. Her mandate includes leading strategy across institutional partnerships and onboarding more companies onto the Solana platform.
Yet despite these headline numbers, SOL’s price has seen only marginal movement over the past month—up just 0.18%—underscoring a disconnect between network usage and market sentiment.
As of September 24, 2026, SOL trades at $115.68 with a market cap rank of 7. The token remains well below its all-time high of $293.31 set on January 19, 2025. This muted price action contrasts sharply with the scale of on-chain activity and institutional engagement reported by the Foundation.
Payments Veteran Raees Tackles Stablecoins
Jamal Raees will lead efforts focused on stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and deeper engagement with major payments companies. His appointment follows the March rollout of the Solana Developer Platform—a toolkit designed to make it easier for businesses to build payment solutions on Solana. Early partners include Modern Treasury for payments infrastructure, while Mastercard and Western Union have been named as initial users.
Raees’ experience at Polygon Labs and Bridge positions him well to navigate the complexities of integrating legacy payment systems with blockchain technology. The Foundation sees stablecoins as a key bridge between crypto-native applications and mainstream finance, especially given that Amazon Web Services recently added support for Solana in its x402 feature—enabling website owners to charge AI agents in USDC for content access.
Still, while major brands are experimenting with Solana’s tech stack, it remains unclear how quickly large-scale adoption will follow given regulatory uncertainties around stablecoins and tokenized deposits.
See Also
Fast-Tracking Transaction Speeds With Alpenglow
The Foundation isn’t just betting on executive talent—it is also pushing technical boundaries to attract enterprise users. Last week, Solana reduced its target slot time (the interval between blocks) to 250 milliseconds—a nearly 17% improvement over previous speeds. This marks the third reduction out of four planned upgrades intended to make transaction finality nearly instantaneous.
A forthcoming upgrade called Alpenglow aims to further slash transaction finality from about 12.8 seconds down to roughly 150 milliseconds. Such improvements are critical for payment use cases where speed is paramount; they could also help address lingering concerns about network reliability that have dogged Solana in past years.
In a piece from coindesk.com, it was noted that earlier this month President Lily Liu described this moment as part of a “Token Supercycle”—a long-term shift moving money, assets, and ownership onto blockchain rails.
New Hires Signal Major Expansion Drive
The Solana Foundation’s recent hires reflect an ambition not just to grow transaction volume or onboard new projects but to position the network as core infrastructure for global finance.
What deserves close attention
If Solana successfully deploys the Alpenglow network upgrade—intended to reduce transaction finality from about 12.8 seconds to roughly 150 milliseconds—immediate impacts on payment processing speed and institutional onboarding could be observed, but the exact deployment date remains unclear.