The Solana Foundation unveiled the former CMO of Binance and a joint payment line executive as it continues to expand its partnership.

What happened to the Solana Foundation?

The Solana Foundation announces the appointment of two new executives to key positions, including Rachel Conlan, former president and chief marketing officer (CMO) for Binance , who will take over as Chief Strategy Officer.

The move comes as Solana continues to announce partnerships with new allies, leading many to view it as a strategic setback for the network.

Rachel Conlan is who and will do what?

Conlan worked at Binance for three years, prior to which he held senior positions at OKX , CAA Sports and Havas with a blend of experience in crypto, sports and brand communications.

In her new role, she will be responsible for the overall strategy of building partnerships with institutions, expanding ecosystems and attracting various businesses to build on Solana .

How important is the position of payment institutions?

Jamal Raees revealed that he will be working closely with a major payment company, focusing on infrastructure for the team developing payment services on Solana .

"My focus is to drive the use of stablecoin and tokenized deposits to grow more based on a global market as a whole", Raees said in a statement prepared by Solana Foundation.

This approach is consistent with the industry's direction that stablecoins are becoming a truly cross-border payment tool, not just an asset for profit.

The new partnership that came together

Changes in management occurred between Solana and the declaration of the Grand Alliance, including:

• Modern Treasury A fintech company from San Francisco will be a payment infrastructure partner on the foundation's newly launched Solana Developer Platform.
• Other financial corporations and quasi-corporations (announced earlier this year)
• Mastercard and Western Union Expand the existing partnership to broaden it

What's going to change?

Solana is set to install the Alpenglow network upgrade which will reduce transaction finality time from about 12.8 seconds to approximately 150 milliseconds, which is the main purpose of this upgrade.

This number is important for direct payment jobs because fast transaction confirmation in near real-time is a prerequisite for nationwide and everyday use of payment systems.

The numbers on the network are Solana . How is it now?

Solana has released the most recent statistics. It's called "The Big Bang Theory".

• The amount of stablecoin business accumulated in the year 2026 is 5 billion US dollars
• The value of real world assets ( RWA ) on the network is more than 4.5 billion dollars
• The value of the tokenized supply 620 million dollars

For users in Thailand and Myanmar, these figures reflect that the infrastructure for cross-border wire transfers or receiving payments with stablecoin USDT / USDC , which was originally a strength of this network, is already being upgraded to more institutional levels, especially as global currency brands like Mastercard and Western Union are starting to run on increasingly shared machines.

However, these executive appointments and collaborations are laying the foundation for a long-term outcome. It remains to be seen whether Alpenglow will actually deliver on its 150 millionth milestone.