Solana Crossroads Conference Showcases the Cutting-Edge of Innovation

The Solana Crossroads conference, held in Istanbul from April 25 to 26, 2025, brought together the key players in blockchain infrastructure

Solana Crossroads Istanbul brought together the key players in blockchain infrastructure: protocol teams, investors, and builders.

The conversations at the conference, held on April 25 and 26, covered what is and is not working in domains like trading platforms, stablecoin-backed finance, and on-chain lending.

BeInCrypto documented the most relevant developments.

Jupiter Builds DeFi Superapp Focusing on Perpetual Trading, Mobile Wallet Support, and More

Jupiter founder Kash Dhanda highlighted the ongoing challenge of aggregation at scale.

“New tokens are launching daily, and liquidity keeps shifting; hence, we’ve worked hard to build new systems and a robust routing engine that can keep up with this pace of change.”

To address this, Jupiter’s recently released Ultra Mode adds real-time slippage estimation and AI-driven routing logic. “What matters isn’t just the quoted price – it’s what ends up in your wallet.”

The platform has grown beyond simple swaps to include perpetual trading, mobile wallet support, and portfolio tools. NFT routing is next.

“We’re not building features just to tick off a list. The goal is to make Solana easier to trade, from start to finish,” Dhanda concluded.

Kamino Builds Around Simplicity and Safety

Kamino Finance began with a clear objective: to reduce the complexity of DeFi tools.

“People had to set price ranges manually. It just didn’t work for most users,” said Viktor from the Kamino team.

What started as an automated liquidity product has become the largest borrow/lend platform on Solana, with over $3 billion supplied. The next release, Kamino Lend V2, will introduce segmented lending markets with curated vaults, letting users choose between risk strategies without needing to manage individual settings.

Kamino emphasizes safety as its foundation.

“We’ve had over 15 audits, and we were among the first to adopt formal verification. Risk management is non-negotiable,” Viktor stated.

1kx Looks for Usage Over Hype

According to Peter ‘Pet3rpan’ of venture firm 1kx, real product traction still beats outlavish funding announcements.

“What makes us pay attention? Having users who stick around and pay for a product. It’s really that simple,” he said.

The firm remains focused on early-stage token ecosystems and strong distribution models. One area still on their radar is Web3 gaming.

“Studios are building out real, tokenized game worlds and engines that can iterate rapidly without needing permission from any institutions. It’s a slow burn but a sure thing. They're able to quickly adapt to user feedback and introduce new content in a way that traditional game studios can only dream of.”

One example is Pixels: a game that has spent over $70 million in token incentives and grants for liquidity, compared to the $4 million invested in the studio itself.

“It would’ve been impossible to reach that level of impact with traditional ad budgets.”

Drift Builds for Both Active and Passive Users

Chris Heaney from Drift highlighted two main priorities: faster trades and easier liquidity access.

The recently launched Swift upgrade on the Harvest chain will enable gasless trading and faster fills for smaller trades, while Drift is now integrating vaults for users to deposit funds into managed strategies.

“For newer users, the full Harvest interface can be a lot to take in. So we’ll be offering simpler paths for those who just want to allocate funds and earn yield, while keeping the advanced tools available for more active traders.”

A new feature, the DLP (Drift Liquidity Provider token), will further expand access by letting users contribute to liquidity without needing to manage it directly.

Huma Finance Uses PayFi to Solve Real-World Problems

Erbil Karaman of Huma Finance spoke about building tools that matter outside of crypto’s immediate inner circle.

“Most users aren’t interested in hearing about gas fees or MEVs. They care about inflation, slow payments, or lack of access to financial services.”

Huma’s PayFi network accelerates global payments and unlocks liquidity. Its stablecoin-backed infrastructure powers use cases like cross-border payments, trade finance, and on-chain cards, with integrations with institutions in London, Hong Kong, and Dubai.

“We’re not here to convert people to crypto. We’re here to help solve problems that people already have, in ways that happen to use blockchain technology.”