Solana Foundation hires Binance, Polygon veterans as it ramps up tokenized finance push

The Solana Foundation announced two senior hires as it intensifies outreach to institutional players building payments and tokenized financial products on the Solana blockchain. Rachel Conlan, who spent three years at Binance and served most recently as global chief marketing officer before departing in June, will lead strategy across institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and company onboarding. Jamal Raees joins as general manager for payments after roles at Polygon Labs and earlier stints at stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge (now part of Stripe) and crypto payments provider Wyre. The appointments come amid a broader effort by the foundation to position Solana as infrastructure for more than crypto trading, emphasizing stablecoin payments, tokenized funds and onchain equities as areas for institutional adoption. Solana Foundation President Lily Liu has been publicly promoting a “Token Supercycle” thesis, arguing that money, assets and ownership will increasingly migrate onto always-on blockchain infrastructure that operates outside traditional market hours. Onchain activity gives some weight to that pitch: Allium data shows the Solana chain processed more than $5 trillion in stablecoin volume this year, while RWA.xyz reports about $4.5 billion in tokenized assets on the network, including over $600 million in tokenized stocks according to Blockworks data. The foundation said Conlan will focus on clarifying value propositions and building institutional relationships, while Raees will concentrate on bringing payments firms and businesses onto Solana for moving money. Taken together, the hires reflect a targeted recruitment of industry executives with payments and crypto ecosystem experience to accelerate Solana’s institutional-facing initiatives. The foundation framed the moves as steps toward converting interest from financial firms into concrete implementations on its network.