Goldman has $108M in SOL, BlackRock put $550M on Solana, JPMorgan traded $50M paper - but where are the retail users?

General
1

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as we try to onboard users to our Web3 startup. The institutional adoption headlines are incredible - but where’s the retail follow-through?

The Institutional Side Looks Amazing

Let me lay out what happened in just the past few months:

  • Goldman Sachs holds $108M in SOL - that’s 15% of all Solana ETF assets from one of the most conservative banks on Wall Street
  • BlackRock’s BUIDL fund cleared $550M on Solana - the world’s largest asset manager is running production infrastructure on-chain
  • JPMorgan executed a $50M commercial paper trade on Solana’s public blockchain (not a private chain!) with Galaxy Digital
  • Major payment processors like Visa, PayPal, and Stripe are running production workflows on the network

This isn’t pilot programs or POCs anymore. This is billions of dollars in real institutional capital deployed on Solana infrastructure. JPMorgan even said they plan to extend this to more issuers and security types in 2026.

But Then I Talk to Actual Users…

Here’s what happened last week: I tried to onboard five people from my old fintech network - smart folks, comfortable with tech, curious about crypto. Four of them gave up before completing wallet setup.

The reasons?

  • Seed phrases feel like a trap (“write these 12 words down and if you lose them you lose everything forever”)
  • Every transaction warning says “THIS IS IRREVERSIBLE” in scary red text
  • MetaMask rejected connection attempts with cryptic error messages
  • One person got a phishing email 20 minutes after creating a wallet and deleted everything out of fear

Gas fees aren’t the issue - Solana transactions cost fractions of a cent. Speed isn’t the issue - transactions confirm in seconds. The infrastructure works incredibly well.

Are We Building Two Separate Ecosystems?

This is what keeps me up at night. It feels like:

Institutional users get:

  • Custodial solutions (BitGo, Coinbase Prime) with insurance
  • White-glove onboarding with dedicated support teams
  • Legal protections and regulatory clarity (thanks SEC/CFTC commodity classification)
  • Professional infrastructure that abstracts away crypto complexity

Retail users get:

  • “DYOR” and “not your keys, not your coins” as the only advice
  • Zero customer support if something goes wrong
  • Expected to understand cryptographic signatures, gas limits, slippage tolerance
  • 2017-era wallet UX that assumes everyone has crypto PhD

Goldman Sachs trusts Solana with $108M. BlackRock trusts it with $550M. JPMorgan uses it for mission-critical commercial paper trading.

But my non-crypto-native friends won’t trust it with $100 because the UX makes them feel like one wrong click will destroy their money.

What Actually Needs to Change?

I’m genuinely asking because this affects our business model:

  1. Do we need “training wheels” wallets with custodial features and insurance for mainstream users?
  2. Should we stop pretending self-custody is realistic for average consumers?
  3. Are consumer apps even the goal, or is institutional infrastructure the real product-market fit for blockchain?
  4. Maybe AI agents will make all this invisible - but that feels like kicking the can down the road

The infrastructure is ready. Solana can handle retail scale - we saw that with the meme coin boom. The institutions trust it for billions.

So why aren’t retail users following the institutional lead? What’s the actual blocker we need to solve?

Looking forward to your thoughts, especially from folks building consumer-facing apps or dealing with onboarding challenges.

Steve - trying to build products people actually want to use

2

This hits so close to home, Steve. I literally watched this happen last month.

I was hanging out with some friends from my old React meetup group - really smart people, some working at top tech companies. One of them asked me to show them how DeFi works because they’d been hearing about all the yield opportunities.

The Wallet Setup Nightmare

I pulled up MetaMask and walked through the setup. The moment the seed phrase screen appeared, I watched their faces change.

“Wait, so if I lose this piece of paper, all my money is just… gone? Forever? No customer service to call?”

“Yep.”

“And if someone gets this paper, they can take everything?”

“Yep.”

“And I have to write it down by hand because screenshot is dangerous?”

“Yep.”

Two of them literally nope’d out right there. One made it through setup, tried to connect to a DeFi app, got three “transaction failed” errors (we still don’t know why - probably RPC issues), and gave up.

The Problem Isn’t Technical

You’re absolutely right that the infrastructure works. Solana is crazy fast and cheap. Ethereum L2s have solved the gas fee problem. The tech is production-ready.

But the UX is designed for people who already understand crypto.

Here’s what institutions get that retail doesn’t:

  • Custodial solutions with insurance - If something goes wrong, BitGo or Coinbase Prime handles it
  • White-glove support - Dedicated account managers, 24/7 support, legal teams
  • Legal protections - Contracts, insurance policies, regulatory oversight

Here’s what retail users get:

  • “DYOR” - Do Your Own Research (aka we won’t help you)
  • “Not your keys, not your coins” - You’re on your own, good luck
  • “Always verify the contract address” - Because one typo means you lose everything to a scammer
  • Expected to understand what a nonce is, why transactions fail, what slippage means, why MEV exists

It’s like if banks required everyone to understand Federal Reserve monetary policy before opening a checking account.

Progressive Disclosure Might Help… But

I’m cautiously optimistic about the new progressive disclosure wallets coming out. The idea is to hide all the complexity until users are ready for it - no seed phrases upfront, just email/social recovery.

But here’s my concern: Does hiding complexity create false security?

If users don’t understand that approving a token spend gives unlimited access to their wallet, and the UI just shows a friendly “Connect to App” button… are we setting them up for disaster when they encounter a malicious contract?

What I Think We Need

Honestly, I think we need a hybrid approach:

  1. Custodial onboarding with education pathway - Let people start with custodial wallets (Coinbase, etc.), then gradually teach them about self-custody
  2. Better security defaults - Limit token approvals by default, require confirmation for large transactions, build in phishing detection
  3. Actually useful error messages - “Transaction failed: RPC node timeout” means nothing to normal people
  4. Apps that are worth the friction - Right now, most crypto apps are just… DeFi yield farming or NFT speculation. Where’s the app my mom would actually want to use?

The infrastructure is ready. The institutions trust it. Now we need consumer apps that are so useful people will tolerate the learning curve - and UX that doesn’t require a PhD in cryptography.

Emma - still learning, still building, still helping friends navigate this mess