Visa Expands USDC Settlement to Solana as Crypto Markets Digest Post-Grayscale Volatility

Visa Expands USDC Settlement to Solana as Crypto Markets Digest Post-Grayscale Volatility

The cryptocurrency market spent the first week of September 2023 consolidating after a dramatic run of ETF-driven volatility. Bitcoin, which had briefly surged past $28,000 following the Grayscale court ruling on August 29, gave back most of those gains as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delayed decisions on seven spot Bitcoin ETF applications. By September 8, BTC was trading around $25,900, with the broader altcoin market reflecting similarly subdued sentiment.

Yet beneath the surface of a quiet market, two developments stood out as potential catalysts for the next phase of crypto adoption: Visa’s decision to expand its stablecoin settlement capabilities to the Solana blockchain and the first wave of spot Ethereum ETF applications being filed with regulators.

TL;DR

• Bitcoin traded around $25,900 on September 8, erasing gains from the Grayscale court ruling
• Visa expanded USDC settlement to Solana, partnering with Worldpay and Nuvei
• The SEC delayed decisions on seven spot Bitcoin ETF applications until mid-October
• First spot Ethereum ETF applications were filed in September 2023
• Solana’s funding rate turned positive following the Visa announcement

Visa Bets on Solana for Faster Settlements

In a move that signaled growing institutional confidence in blockchain infrastructure, Visa announced on September 5 that it was expanding its stablecoin settlement capabilities to the Solana blockchain. The payment giant began working with merchant acquirers Worldpay and Nuvei to pilot USDC-based settlement on Solana, allowing partners to send and receive payments using the Circle-issued stablecoin.

The expansion represented a significant endorsement for Solana, a network that had faced skepticism following its repeated outages in 2022. Visa’s choice of Solana was driven by the blockchain’s high throughput and low transaction costs, making it suitable for the high-volume settlement environment that global payments demand. The pilot built on Visa’s earlier experimentation with USDC settlement on Ethereum, extending the capability to a chain designed for speed.

The market responded quickly. Solana’s native token SOL saw its weighted funding rate turn positive in the days following the announcement, indicating renewed bullish positioning among derivatives traders. For a network that had spent much of 2022 and early 2023 recovering from the fallout of the FTX collapse, Visa’s endorsement was a meaningful vote of confidence.

The Grayscale Aftermath: From $28K to Consolidation

The week leading up to September 8 had been one of the most eventful in months for Bitcoin. On August 29, a federal appeals court ruled that the SEC was wrong to deny Grayscale’s application to convert its Bitcoin Trust into a spot ETF. Bitcoin surged more than 7% on the news, briefly touching $28,000 as cumulative volume delta on major exchanges flipped positive. Binance’s BTC-USDT pair recorded over $50 million in net buying pressure.

However, the rally proved short-lived. By Thursday, the SEC announced it would delay decisions on all seven pending spot Bitcoin ETF applications, pushing the timeline to mid-October. The selling pressure was sharp: Binance’s BTC pairs approached negative $100 million in cumulative volume delta heading into the weekend, and Coinbase’s BTC-USD pair also flipped negative.

According to data from Kaiko Research, Bitcoin’s open interest declined by approximately 8% between August 29 and August 31, falling to 237,000 BTC. While the price swing was notable, trade volume remained relatively muted—August 29 ranked just 504th out of 973 days since the start of 2021 in terms of BTC volume, underscoring just how quiet markets had been throughout the summer.

Ethereum ETF Applications Enter the Scene

Even as the spot Bitcoin ETF narrative continued to dominate headlines, a new chapter opened in the first week of September: the filing of initial spot Ethereum ETF applications. VanEck was among the first issuers to disclose plans for a U.S. spot Ethereum ETF, while Hashdex filed its Nasdaq Ethereum ETF application, which integrated both spot Ethereum holdings and futures contracts.

These filings came at an interesting time for Ethereum. On August 31, a U.S. court had referred to ETH as a commodity while dismissing an investor suit against Uniswap, providing a potential regulatory tailwind. Ethereum was trading around $1,637 to $1,647 on September 8, down from higher levels reached immediately after the Grayscale ruling but holding relatively steady compared to Bitcoin’s retreat.

Solana’s Institutional Moment

For altcoin watchers, Visa’s Solana integration was arguably the most significant news of the week. The partnership with Worldpay and Nuvei—two of the largest payment processors globally—suggested that blockchain-based settlement was moving beyond experimental phases into production-grade infrastructure.

Solana’s speed advantages are well-documented, with the network capable of processing thousands of transactions per second at fractions of a cent in fees. For Visa, which processes enormous volumes of cross-border transactions daily, the ability to settle in USDC on a fast, low-cost network represented tangible operational improvements over traditional correspondent banking systems.

Why This Matters

The convergence of Visa’s Solana expansion and the first Ethereum ETF filings in the same week as Bitcoin’s post-Grayscale consolidation tells a broader story about where crypto is heading. While retail traders focused on short-term price swings, institutional players were laying infrastructure for the next cycle. Visa didn’t choose Ethereum for this expansion—it chose Solana, signaling that real-world utility, not just market cap, drives adoption decisions. Meanwhile, the Ethereum ETF filings opened a new regulatory front that would eventually reshape how institutional investors access the second-largest cryptocurrency.

Disclaimer: This article was written for informational purposes based on publicly available data from September 2023. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions.