The Solana Foundation launched Frontier Traders, a formal institutional program for elite trading companies, on Thursday afternoon, with the first qualifying campaign launched on Friday for tokenized shares of SpaceX.
The entry bar is set at $500 million in 30-day on-chain DEX volume combined with $16 million in total time-weighted open interest. Three VIP tiers scale from there. VIP 1 has a volume of $500 million to $2 billion, VIP 2 has a volume of $2 billion to $5 billion, and VIP 3 has a volume of $5 billion or more. Manufacturer Minimum is directly reviewed with companies that can provide competitive liquidity. Members receive trading rebates at all Solana venues, priority RPC access, early access to asset launches via Asset Express, and invitations to quarterly private briefings. Jupiter Exchange is a featured venue partner for the program. VIP registration ends on June 18th.
Businesses that fall below the trading volume threshold can qualify through a limited-time promotion. The first campaign will begin on Friday for SpaceX’s tokenized shares. Choosing SpaceX as its debut asset puts Solana directly into the pre-IPO derivatives race. Trade.xyz launched synthetic SpaceX Perpetual with Hyperliquid in May. Bybit and Kraken continued their 1:1 equity-backed SpaceX exposure through Backed Assets’ xStocks in June, bringing the number of active venues to four by Thursday’s announcement.
The Frontier Traders website notes that the all-in fee for SOL/USDC is 0.4 basis points compared to 2.6 basis points for Binance VIP 9, a 6.5x difference that the foundation envisions as a case for routing institutional volume to Solana. The site also notes that BisonFi Prop AMM has generated over $6 billion in 30-day on-chain trading volume, which is nearly triple Binance’s numbers for the same period.
The program comes as the Solana ecosystem puts pressure on Hyperliquid’s institutional share from multiple angles. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko last month backed a new Perp DEX specifically aimed at bringing trading volume back to Solana. Frontier Traders tiers provide direct financial rewards. Companies in the program collect rebates from the Foundation for on-chain transactions with structured access to the protocols that form Solana’s market structure.
