Cardano Founder Asserts Solana’s RWA Dominance, But Warns It’s Still Early

In a series of wide-ranging, technically rich conversations on an X Space, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson offered one of his clearest visions yet for the future of digital markets, decentralized AI, and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

Hoskinson acknowledged that the Solana blockchain currently dominates RWA activity, handling “around 99%” of the traffic. But he is quick to clarify that the RWA market is still “very small” compared to where it’s headed, an estimated $10 trillion market in the next decade.

“Solana may be 99% of RWA trading today,” he said, but that’s just because the market is tiny. The RWA market will go to ten trillion dollars, and no single chain is going to own that.”

Moreover, unlike memecoins or non-fungible tokens (NFTs), modern securities laws tightly bind RWA tokenization.

The Coming Battle Over Regulated Digital Markets

Despite the X space’s larger conversations about AI, the standout headline was Hoskinson’s perspective on real-world asset tokenization and Solana’s early lead.

He said plainly: “Solana owns the vast majority of RWA traffic right now.” But he quickly pushed back on narratives that frame this dominance as permanent. “You can’t escape regulatory schema,” he noted. “The SEC is not going to rewrite how securities work just because crypto wants them to. Instead, blockchain must adapt.”

For Hoskinson, the real competition in RWAs isn’t about speed or popularity, it’s about compliance. Tokenized securities must operate within existing laws, which require identity checks, jurisdictional restrictions, and auditable workflows.

He argued that Midnight Network, a privacy-focused sidechain of the Cardano blockchain, fills the missing piece. Noting that it serves as the compliance verifier, enabling transactions only after parties fulfill jurisdictional and legal obligations.

Furthermore, he describes it as a “split-DEX” model in which unregulated assets and regulated securities can coexist on the same trading platform but operate under different compliance workflows. Midnight performs cryptographic KYC and legal verification in the background, enabling instant settlement once the requirements are met.

“Think of it like two rooms,” he said. “The unregulated assets stay in one room. The regulated assets are moved to the other room. Midnight is the bridge that lets these things interact without breaking the law.”

This architecture allows any Solana-based blockchain to route regulated trades through Midnight while maintaining its own liquidity and user experience.

Hoskinson believes this model will define the next decade of blockchain competition. Markets could move to 24/7 trading with T=0 settlement, far beyond Wall Street’s legacy 9 AM to 5 PM trading hours.

“Financial markets don’t need to close. They close because legacy infrastructure can’t keep up. With automated compliance and instant settlement, there’s no reason securities can’t trade around the clock,” he said.

Nonetheless, Hoskinson’s comments came alongside broader insights into AI-driven commerce, the collapse of traditional ad-based business models, and why Midnight Cardano’s new privacy-and-compliance blockchain may play a central role in the next wave of digital transformation.

The post Cardano Founder Asserts Solana’s RWA Dominance, But Warns It’s Still Early appeared first on CoinTab News.