Solana's RWA and payment growth have concentration issues

Core Points

Solana processed 32% of RWA (real world assets) spot trading volume.

It holds 12% of the value of outstanding RWAs.

A single issuer and a single trading venue dominated trading volume.

The leading position of the x402 protocol still needs to be confirmed through organic use.

Two cities account for more than half of the Leader Slots.

Solana's lead in the RWA field is reflected in trading rather than holding positions

According to Allium's report, in the first 12 months ended August 18, the total RWA spot transaction volume on the chain was US$46 billion, of which Solana Network handled US$14.7 billion. This allowed the network to obtain 32% of U.S. dollar transaction volume and 47% of transactions (covering the 24 blockchains studied).

Solana captured 32% of RWA spot trading volume while issuing institutional fixed income. However, Solana holds only 12% of the outstanding RWA value as measured by Allium. Therefore, its larger trading share reflects turnover rates rather than the total amount of tokenized assets on the network.

Allium attributed this gap in part to frequent and relatively small transactions. The median RWA transaction volume on Solana is $29, compared with $70 on other networks. The 374,000 traders on Solana completed an average of 114 transactions each, compared with 63 in other regions.

Tokenized shares generated $8.2 billion of Solana's annual RWA transaction volume. Allium found that 63% of stock transactions occurred outside U.S. exchange closing hours, indicating that most demand occurred when traditional markets were closed.

Annual data also shows concentration within individual asset classes. Solana processed $5.4 billion (74%) of fixed income trading volume measured across the chain, but almost all of its share came from two private credit issuers. In the private equity category, one reinsurance product generated 52% of the on-chain transaction volume measured by Allium.

Why 32% and 9.1% tell different stories

Another Token Terminal dataset shows that in the past 30 days, DEX (decentralized exchange) volume of Solana tokenized stocks was US$807.3 million, accounting for 9.1% of the US$8.8 billion total recorded across six chains.

Solana contributed US$807.3 million in the past 30 days, accounting for 9.1% of the tokenized stock DEX volume.

Within Solana, the main participants include:

• Reference stocks: ETFs (US$165.3 million)
• Assets: SPYx (US$145.4 million)
• Issuer: xStocks (US$490.7 million)
• Trading venue: Raydium CLMM (US$560.4 million)

This figure does not conflict with Allium's 32% share. Allium covers six RWA categories for a one-year period, including equities, fixed income, private equity and commodities. Token Terminal only measures tokenized stocks traded on a decentralized exchange over a month.

Data used different reporting windows, ranging from 30 days to the 12 months ending August 18, 2026.

Measurement results for four datasets

A single issuer and single trading venue carry the majority of tokenized stock trading volume

Within Solana, xStocks generated US$490.7 million of the 30-day tokenized stock DEX trading volume, accounting for 60.8%. Raydium's centralized liquidity pool processed $560.4 million, equivalent to 69.4% of the total.

These percentages cannot be added directly. xStocks is an issuer and Raydium is a trading venue. They each dominate different levels of the same market.

Any changes to xStocks listing rules, redemption terms or incentives could result in a reduction in tradable products. On Raydium, contract incidents or the departure of major liquidity providers can weaken liquidity and widen spreads.

These data point to business concentration rather than consensus failure. If xStocks or Raydium changes significantly, trading volumes may decline or migrate rapidly.

x402 opens up another use case for Solana

In addition to tokenized stocks, Solana is also competing for payments through the x402 settlement API and other online services.

x402 is an open protocol that allows APIs or digital services to request stablecoin payments in HTTP requests. Individuals, applications, or software agents can pay for data, computing resources, or other online services without having to complete the regular checkout process.

According to the Artemis chart shared by Solana, Solana ranked first in terms of x402 transaction volume and volume for the second consecutive week.

Since x402 payments are settled in stablecoins, they do not represent a direct purchase of SOL. Their connection with native tokens is mainly limited to the block space they use and transaction fees.

The raw transaction count requires further review. In January 2026, Artemis estimated that under its revised methodology, 86% of Solana's historical x402 payments were manipulated or non-economic. Early data was exaggerated by meme transfers and attempts to climb the ranking of activities.

This estimate is based on early data. Therefore, the September rankings should be seen as current leadership rather than proof of an established commercial market.

Two cities account for more than half of the leader slots

Another concentration has emerged in the validator infrastructure that handles these transactions.

Data released by Glassnode on X shows that during the 1030th era, 35.3% of Solana's leader slots were in Frankfurt and 19.4% were in Amsterdam. These two cities together account for approximately 54.7%.

Glassnode also reported that 310 of the 675 validators were located in these cities, accounting for 46% of the total number of validators and 53% of active pledges. In the same snapshot, Europe occupied 72.9% of the leader slot.

Leader slot shares measure the location of scheduled block production opportunities, not who controls the validator. Independent operators can use facilities in the same city, so this data does not prove co-ownership. But they do reveal correlated exposures to connection failures, custody interruptions, and regional regulatory actions.

Distribution may change between eras as validators move, exit the network, or obtain varying amounts of delegated pledges. The data describes a September 8 snapshot rather than a permanent block production allocation.

Performance incentives help explain clustering phenomena

Frankfurt and Amsterdam are major connection hubs, making it attractive to validators and delay-sensitive traders. Physical proximity reduces the time required to send transactions to the current block producer, which can improve the execution efficiency of market makers, arbitrage systems, and clearing robots.

Therefore, competition for lower latency may encourage operators to use the same high-connectivity infrastructure.

There is also a cost to maintain low latency settings. Verifiers must bear hosting, connectivity and hardware costs, so changes in validator rewards can shape which operators can justify operating in major connectivity hubs. Coindoo has previously studied how record Solana fees align with proposed validator reward cuts. Current geographical location data does not show whether these proposals contributed to the formation of the Frankfurt-Amsterdam cluster.

Indicators showing a broader distribution

For tokenized stocks, risk will be reduced if rival issuers and trading venues gain trading volume without shrinking the overall market. A decline in xStocks or Raydium shares due to fewer transactions alone does not represent a greater adoption rate.

For x402, recurring buyers, qualified sellers, and ongoing value paid will provide stronger evidence than another week's transaction record. These measures will help distinguish payments for useful services from testing, browsing and leaderboard competition.

At the infrastructure level, the most obvious improvement will be the increase in pledge volume and leader slot share outside of Frankfurt and Amsterdam. Reduced concentration caused by expansion in other regions will strengthen the network; reduced share caused by the departure of verifiers will not.