Solana Briefly Surpassed the NYSE in Weekly Trade Count, Fidelity Says

Solana Briefly Surpasses NYSE in Weekly Trades, Fidelity Finds

Solana briefly logged more weekly trades than the New York Stock Exchange, according to Fidelity Digital Assets. The comparison is notable, but it counts trades, not dollars, and doesn’t show that Solana handled more U.S. stock-market activity.

• Fidelity says Solana averaged about 15% of trades in its comparison during 2026.
• The comparison covers different kinds of venues, and Fidelity has not disclosed its full methodology.
• Network upgrades and activity in tokenized assets and derivatives add to Solana’s trading profile.
• Fidelity warns that trading-related fees could fall when crypto markets weaken.

A trade-count milestone, with limits

In research published November 6, Fidelity Digital Assets described Solana as an increasingly competitive trading venue. Senior digital assets research analyst Max Wadington called it “an emerging piece of financial market infrastructure.”

Fidelity reported that Solana averaged about 15% of the trades in its comparison during 2026 and briefly surpassed the NYSE in weekly trade count. Solana said on November 8 that its share of the compared activity had risen from 0.30% in 2022. The November 8 figure is a later update, not a finding in Fidelity’s November 6 report.

The comparison has important limits. It counts trades, not the value of assets exchanged. One venue can process many small trades while another handles fewer, larger ones. Decentralized spot trades in digital assets also aren’t equivalent to trades in listed stocks.

The available description doesn’t identify all the venues and data sources included or explain how Fidelity calculated the 15% figure. That means its result can’t be independently reproduced from the details provided. It also doesn’t mean Solana handled 15% of all U.S. securities trading.

Fidelity cited Nasdaq research estimating that about 50% of U.S. equity trading volume took place away from exchanges in 2025. That figure concerns off-exchange equity trading volume, not the trade-count measure in Fidelity’s comparison. It shows that exchange statistics don’t capture every form of securities trading, but the two measures aren’t directly comparable.

Performance claims and measured results

Solana’s case as a trading venue also depends on how quickly it can process and settle transactions. Its slot times, the intervals associated with block production, had stabilized near 400 milliseconds. Developers were working toward a longer-term target of about 200 milliseconds.

Fidelity reported that Solana’s maximum block capacity rose from 60 million to 100 million compute units, a 66% increase. Compute units measure the processing resources transactions use. A higher block limit can allow more activity in each block, but it doesn’t prove the network can handle demand without congestion.

Fidelity also reported that Solana’s Alpenglow consensus upgrade went live on October 21 and aims for transaction finality near 150 milliseconds. Finality is when a transaction is treated as settled. An independent measurement on October 23 recorded median finality of around 404 milliseconds, above the target. The available details don’t specify the scope of the upgrade’s deployment.

A target and a measured result aren’t the same thing. The October measurement doesn’t show whether Alpenglow will reach its target over time. But it does make clear that 150 milliseconds shouldn’t be presented as an achieved result.

Tokenized assets and derivatives add activity

Fidelity also pointed to growth in tokenized assets on Solana. Tokenization represents an asset digitally on a blockchain. The products covered in its research include equities, Treasury products, commodities and private credit instruments.

Solana said monthly trading volume in tokenized assets had grown from less than $100 million to nearly $5 billion. The figures don’t specify which dates they cover or explain in detail how volume was calculated, making the scale of the increase difficult to assess independently.

In October, Securitize confirmed that 12 tokenized stocks were available on Solana to eligible investors, including products referencing Apple, Nvidia and Tesla. A token that references a stock doesn’t necessarily give its holder direct ownership of the share. The product’s terms determine the holder’s rights and whether the token can be transferred. Eligibility restrictions may also apply.

Derivatives bring in more trading activity. Fidelity reported that Solana-based perpetual-futures platforms processed more than $590 billion in notional volume over the preceding 12 months. Perpetual futures are derivatives with no fixed expiry date. They can let traders use leverage without owning the underlying asset. Notional volume is the stated value of positions traded, not the amount of assets that changed hands outright.

Trading activity is not guaranteed revenue

Fidelity identified base fees, priority fees and Jito tips for transaction ordering as sources of transaction-related income in the Solana ecosystem. Users pay fees to submit or prioritize transactions, while Jito tips are payments tied to transaction ordering. Fidelity also mentioned validator voting costs, but those are expenses validators pay, not revenue they receive.

That distinction matters. Trading activity can generate some fee income, but it doesn’t make that income predictable. Fidelity warned that weaker crypto markets can reduce profitable trading opportunities and demand for priority execution and related fees. A busy network may generate more fees, but that doesn’t guarantee steady revenue across market conditions.

Key questions

• What does Fidelity’s 15% figure measure?

  It’s Solana’s approximate share of the trades in Fidelity’s comparison during 2026, not its share of U.S. securities trading by dollar value. The available details don’t disclose enough of the methodology to reproduce the calculation.

• Is Solana already meeting Alpenglow’s finality target?

  The target is near 150 milliseconds. An independent measurement on October 23 recorded median finality of around 404 milliseconds, so the target shouldn’t be confused with observed performance. Alpenglow’s speed and resilience upgrades remain distinct from the measured result.

• What could weaken Solana’s transaction-related income?

  Fidelity says weaker markets may reduce profitable trading opportunities and demand for priority execution and related fees. Validator voting costs are an expense, not revenue.

Solana’s trade-count milestone signals activity. It doesn’t prove the network has displaced traditional exchanges or secured a lasting role in finance. The tougher test is whether it can deliver reliable performance and sustain useful markets, and the activity that supports them, through strong and weak trading conditions. Solana’s rally and Alpenglow are part of that broader market picture.