Recently, I’ve been observing many developments in the altcoin market and found some interesting changes worth discussing.

In the beginning of the year, the altcoin market still faces liquidity tightening, coupled with widespread concerns about high FDV and long-term lock-ups, making the overall atmosphere somewhat cautious. However, what’s interesting is that projects that can clearly explain their business logic, have transparent cash flow distribution mechanisms, or provide users with genuine exit paths are regaining market attention. Conversely, whenever a project changes its roadmap, switches blockchain platforms, or adjusts policies, the community’s first reaction tends to be to think about rug pulls and the last wave of exit scams.

This mindset actually reflects a core issue—users need certainty.

Looking at specific project actions can help understand this trend:

PENDLE upgraded its vePENDLE model to sPENDLE, with the key change being—no longer requiring multi-year lock-ups, instead switching to a 14-day exit cycle. This directly alleviates users’ liquidity concerns and makes staking yields more flexible.

Pump Fund is promoting a "Build in Public" hackathon (with a $3 million scale), while continuing to support application ecosystems on the platform. This is using funding and mechanisms to strengthen ecosystem expectations.

On Solana, efforts are expanding the RWA (Real World Assets on-chain) landscape. Remora Markets has added five RWA products, covering tokenized ETFs of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and copper. The total market cap of RWA on the Solana chain has already surpassed $1 billion, driven by tokenized funds, stocks, and commodities. Currently, thBILL has over $25 million in ULTRA collateral support (issued by Libera, a subsidiary of Standard Chartered), and this institutional-level endorsement significantly boosts trust in RWA assets.

World Liberty Financial, in partnership with Dolomite, launched World Liberty Markets, allowing users to deposit assets to earn yields or use holdings as collateral for loans—expanding real-world asset application scenarios.

Magic Eden’s new staking rewards program is also quite attractive—distributing 15% of platform revenue to ME stakers through a combination of token buybacks and USDC distributions, creating both token appreciation potential and stable cash flow.

The story of Zora protocol continues—Solana has integrated ZORA into its on-chain ecosystem trading map, continuing the narrative that Zora aims to be “the marketplace for all assets.”

Etherfuse’s collaboration with Shinhan Securities is noteworthy—they plan to expand tokenized sovereign bonds in Korea and Asia, bringing government bonds on-chain through the stablebond framework, covering chains like Monad, Solana, and Stellar. This signals RWA moving from niche to mainstream.

Yield Basis’s proposed Hybrid Vault is another idea—users’ additional deposits in YB pools are limited by individual caps, which depend on their contribution to the stability of crvUSD. This design turns participants into co-builders of the ecosystem.

From these actions, 2026 indeed looks to be the year Solana’s ecosystem makes a strong push. Whether it’s the scaling of RWA or various projects’ focus on liquidity, exit mechanisms, and cash flow transparency, they all point in the same direction—the market is actively filtering projects with real value, not just narratives. This is good news for teams that focus on delivering tangible results.