You ever scroll through Solana charts and think, “I missed it again”? Same here, until I found these. I’ve spent some quality time deep-diving into the Solana ecosystem. 2 I talked to devs, checked TVL data, and tracked where the smart money’s moving. What I found actually shocked me.
Four Solana projects seem to fly under the radar. If they deliver on what they’re building, they could redefine Solana’s next growth wave. Most people are still chasing hype. Not me, I’m going after utility, innovation, and early traction. Let me show you what I uncovered… because in crypto, being early isn’t luck. It’s all about research.
Jupiter ($JUP)
Jupiter ($JUP) is the leading DEX aggregator on Solana. It has the highest TVL of all Solana protocols. It’s also turning into a comprehensive DeFi platform. Furthermore, it routes trades across different Solana DEXs to find the best prices. It also offers various features, like,
It claims to control up to 95% of DEX aggregator volume on Solana. For instance, all swaps you make in the Phantom wallet go through Jupiter.
Jupiter has moved from being purely a swap/routing layer into lending/money-market. With the already mentioned features, this increases product depth and monetization angles. For example, the public beta of “Jupiter Lend” launched with 40+ vaults and $500+ million TVL within 24h.
Why lenders choose Jupiter Lend:
•Competitive, market-driven APYs
•Instant deposits & withdrawals
•Zero middlemen
•Built by Fluid X JupiterThe proof is in the cat nip
Just use Jupiter
— Jupiter Lend (@jup_lend) October 22, 2025
These expansions help strengthen the ecosystem. They give the project and its $JUP token more relevance beyond pure trading.
Jupiter also keeps shipping meaningful technical upgrades. This month, it launched the “Ultra v3” trading engine. It’s faster and gives better MEV protection. The team also introduced reduced staking lock-ups from 30 to 7 days. It also restructured its governance.
Introducing Ultra V3 – the most advanced end to end trading engine ever created.
It delivers what traders want most:
– Best Price: Meta aggregation which includes Iris, our new router
– Best Execution: ShadowLane for optimal private txn landing & Predictive Execution for… pic.twitter.com/XEubTUmKwM— Jupiter (🐱, 🐐) (@JupiterExchange) October 17, 2025
Another big news item this month is the introduction of the $jupUSD stablecoin. This is in partnership with Ethena Labs. It’s designed to deepen composability and liquidity within its ecosystem.
BREAKING: Jupiter is launching its own stablecoin 🥳
Built in partnership with @ethena_labs, engineered to connect the Jupiverse.$JupUSD, going live in Q4. pic.twitter.com/MWTNTwpvHJ
— Jupiter (🐱, 🐐) (@JupiterExchange) October 8, 2025
Unfortunately, one thing sticks out. The $JUP price keeps lagging behind. It’s currently at 35 cents with a $1.1 billion market cap. Only 31% of its token supply circulates, so that could be better. However, it looks to me that $JUP is very much undervalued.
Pudgy Penguins ($PENGU)
With the Pudgy Penguins ($PENGU) we have an NFT collection that got out of control. But in a good way. It has a strong brand and consumer crossover. To clarify, Pudgy Penguins isn’t just a niche NFT collection. Instead, it has a lot more to offer. For instance, it has,
Its brand-IP expansion means it has more levers than just being a token. Its $PENGU token also has more utility beyond being a collectible. You can dive into DeFi with it. The team launched a branded liquid staking token $penguSOL. This means that you can stake SOL, earn yield, and still maintain liquidity. So, this builds real utility beyond pure hype.
Introducing the penguSOL LST with @sanctumso.
With penguSOL, you can now stake and earn yield through our Pengu validator and support $PENGU without any lockups on your $SOL.
More info below. pic.twitter.com/B15OcoJ0QD
— Pudgy Penguins (@pudgypenguins) October 9, 2025
The Penguin team also has its own validator via a partnership with SOL Strategies. There’s also the already mentioned liquid staking token. This shows that the team embedded itself deep into Solana’s infrastructure. It’s not just riding the wave.
Introducing the official Pengu Validator in collaboration with @solstrategies_.
Staking with the Pengu Validator will give you top competitive APY (7-11%) on your SOL while helping with the institutional adoption of Pengu.
Stake below. pic.twitter.com/DHZazVdf1y
— Pudgy Penguins (@pudgypenguins) April 15, 2025
The Penguins have 5 million followers on their various social media outlets. Combined, these are good for 254 billion views. That’s where their branding muscle comes into play.
The current $PENGU price is only 2 cents. That’s 70% away from its ATH of almost 7 cents. With a $1.2 billion market cap and high circulating supply, it has all the ingredients for price growth.
Kamino Finance ($KMNO)
Kamino Finance ($KMNO) is a DeFi protocol. It automates strategies for liquidity provision, lending, and borrowing. One of its great features is how it simplifies complex DeFi activities. It offers one-click “set-and-forget” vaults. They automatically manage and rebalance concentrated liquidity positions on Solana DEXs. Thus, you can earn yield from your assets in a simple way. There’s no need to manually manage complex positions.
Kamino’s Lending Vaults have now generated over $5M for users—across 14 vaults, 6 assets, and 7 vault managers
Secure, open source, formally verified lending yields. pic.twitter.com/t7NIyZ9xEn
— Kamino (@kamino) October 24, 2025
Kamino also offers an “all-in-one” approach. This means that you don’t have to stitch together separate protocols to access yield, leverage, and liquidity. By making these advanced tools accessible, it lowers the barrier to entry for more users.
Where is the best yield on Solana?
On Kamino. The most secure? On Kamino.
Here is how I use it, and calculation of earnings: 🧵👇
> bbSOL multiply position with 100 SOL, gernerates me 20-40% yield, in 1 month it’s 1.5 – 3.3 SOL of profit
(None of SOL multiply position was… pic.twitter.com/NYuU2VtCsO
— jussy (@jussy_world) October 22, 2025
Furthermore, it offers,
- Looping strategies. With looping, you deposit an asset, borrow another asset against it, and convert the borrowed asset back to the original. You now repeat this process to increase leverage and amplify returns. It does also increase your risks, so be aware of that.
- Leverage trading.
- Staking and governance.
Here’s an interesting observation I made. Kamino Finance is second in TVL on the Solana chain. A strong TVL indicates user trust, liquidity depth, and product-market fit. However, the $KMNO token is an absolute gem with a very small market cap.
The current $KMNO price is almost 6 cents. Its market cap is only $181 million. 30% of its token circulate, so that could be better. Nonetheless, it has great growth potential. A small market cap and an ATH of almost 25 cents. That’s a 4x from here.
Phantom Wallet
Phantom is a noncustodial crypto wallet. It’s by far the most popular wallet in the Solana ecosystem. However, it goes well beyond that as well. It offers various networks, including,
- Ethereum
- Bitcoin
- Sui
- Base
- Polygon
- And Monad’s testnet
If you’d like to enable or disable Sui, or any other networks, you can do so in settings under ‘Active Networks.’ pic.twitter.com/0WhxjSIDR4
— Phantom (@phantom) May 12, 2025
It’s considered as one of the top-notch noncustodial wallets currently available. It has massive user-adoption and ecosystem positioning. Currently, it has around 15 million monthly active users (MAUs). Not only that, but it offers an intuitive UI, a built-in swap (Jupiter), staking, and NFT support. Solana also has an impressive NFT ecosystem.
Phantom has 15 million monthly active users @ArtimusLeton pic.twitter.com/ExeclTNbqt
— nfy (@nonfungibleyash) February 14, 2025
Phantom does not have its own token. However, it recently launched its own dollar pegged stablecoin $CASH. This came together with a payment super-app on Solana. It makes the wallet an easy-to-use payments platform. This bridges crypto and everyday payments.
This expansion into the payment rails intensifies the “stablecoin wars” on Solana. It positions Phantom now as a key player in crypto. It offers real-world spending options. By adding new features like the stablecoin, payments, perps, and staking, Phantom isn’t just a wallet. It’s building towards a broader consumer-finance platform. Rather, it becomes a wallet as a hub.
Introducing: Phantom Perps 👻 ♾️
Go long or short in just a few taps.
100+ markets. Up to 40x leverage. All in your pocket.
Powered by @HyperliquidX pic.twitter.com/YDKjUGBdEn
— Phantom (@phantom) July 8, 2025
So, which one of these Solana gems is your favorite? Or did I miss yours? Let me know in the comments. Make sure to follow our X and Discord channels and join our lively discussions there.
Disclaimer
The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to accepted levels of risk tolerance of the writer/reviewers, and their risk tolerance may be different from yours.
We are not responsible for any losses that you may incur as a result of any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments, so please do your due diligence.
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