Charles Schwab announced platform enhancements, including the addition of 17 new futures products to its thinkorswim trading platform.

Among these are Solana futures (/SOL) and Micro Solana futures (/MSL), joining existing crypto futures like Bitcoin and Ether. This expands crypto exposure options for approved futures accounts on Schwab’s platforms.

Solana futures trade under the symbol /SOL, with micro versions (/MSL) offering smaller contract sizes for more modest positioning amid crypto volatility. The “$11 Trillion” refers to Schwab’s approximate total client assets reported as $11.83 trillion as of November 2025, up 15% year-over-year, highlighting the massive scale of the firm now offering these products.

This move aligns with growing mainstream adoption of crypto derivatives, following earlier additions like Ripple futures and amid strong client interest in digital assets.

Futures trading involves substantial risk, including leverage amplifying losses—trading privileges require approval.

With ~$11.8 trillion in client assets and over 35 million accounts, this exposes Solana derivatives to a massive traditional investor base. Schwab, a conservative retail brokerage giant, adding SOL futures signals strong confidence in Solana as a mature asset class.

It follows CME Group’s launch of SOL futures in March 2025 and Solana spot ETPs trading since October 2025. This validates Solana alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum in regulated derivatives markets, reducing perceived risk for retail and institutional traders.

Approved futures traders on Schwab can now gain leveraged exposure to SOL price movements without holding spot crypto or using unregulated exchanges. Micro contracts (/MSL) lower the barrier for smaller positions, appealing to volatile crypto markets.

Expected to boost trading volume on underlying CME SOL futures, improving price discovery, tightening spreads, and attracting more hedgers/speculators. Community reaction on X has been overwhelmingly positive, with posts highlighting TradFi inflows alongside State Street’s tokenized treasuries and Ondo’s on-chain platforms on Solana.

Positions Solana favorably against competitors; some note SOL’s lower revenue multiple—122x vs. Ethereum’s 616x as undervalued given growing infrastructure trust. Schwab plans direct spot Bitcoin/Ethereum trading in H1 2026, signaling deeper crypto integration.

No massive immediate pump reported, but announcements like this often drive sustained interest rather than instant spikes. More regulated pathways could draw sustained inflows, especially as crypto ETP assets grow, Bitcoin ETPs alone >$150B in 2025.

Accelerates altcoin integration into TradFi, following Bitcoin/Ether dominance. Encourages competitors like Fidelity, Vanguard to expand offerings. Highlights maturing derivatives market: CME crypto volumes surged 140% YoY in Q2 2025.

A traditionally conservative brokerage like Schwab adding SOL derivatives underscores Solana’s evolution into a recognized asset class, placing it on par with Bitcoin futures since 2017 and Ethereum.

Community sentiment on X is highly bullish, viewing it as TradFi committing long-term infrastructure to chains it trusts alongside Ondo and State Street’s tokenized assets on Solana planned for 2026. Approved futures clients can now trade leveraged SOL exposure directly on Schwab’s platforms without needing crypto wallets or offshore exchanges.

Micro contracts lower entry barriers, ideal for managing volatility in smaller increments. This democratizes access for Schwab’s massive user base, potentially channeling significant traditional capital into SOL derivatives.

Expected to drive higher volumes on underlying CME SOL futures, improving price discovery, narrowing spreads, and attracting more professional traders/hedgers.

Part of a maturing crypto derivatives market: CME crypto volumes remain elevated post-2025 surges. Risks remain high—futures are leveraged, volatile, and not suitable for all— Schwab requires approval.

Overall, this is a major win for Solana’s adoption narrative, bridging TradFi and DeFi. It underscores crypto’s shift from speculative fringe to portfolio staple, though volatility persists. Always consider risks; futures trading can amplify losses.

Key Implications of Solana Surviving a Massive DDoS Attack

Solana’s network has been under a sustained distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack for over a week, peaking at approximately 6 terabits per second (Tbps).

Multiple sources, including crypto news outlets and community accounts like SolanaFloor and Pipe Network, describe this as the fourth-largest DDoS attack ever recorded across any distributed system or the internet.

Despite the massive scale—equivalent to billions of packets per second—the attack had no measurable impact on Solana’s performance. Sub-second transaction confirmations. Stable slot latency. No downtime or block production delays

This resilience contrasts with a similar recent attack on the Sui network, which caused degraded performance and delays.Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and others in the community have called this “bullish,” viewing it as real-world proof of the network’s improved engineering and maturity compared to past congestion issues.

Historical largest DDoS attacks have targeted providers like Google Cloud up to 46 Tbps in some reports and Cloudflare— multi-terabit events, but Solana absorbing this volume without disruption highlights its robustness for a public blockchain.

The recent sustained DDoS attack on Solana—peaking at ~6 Tbps and ranking as the fourth-largest ever recorded for any distributed system—had zero measurable impact on the network. This event, ongoing for over a week as of December 16, 2025, serves as a real-world stress test with several important implications.

Proof of Network Maturity and Resilience

Solana maintained sub-second transaction confirmations, stable slot latency, and no downtime or missed blocks throughout the attack.

This contrasts sharply with its history of outages like multiple in 2021-2022 due to spam or bugs and highlights significant engineering improvements, such as enhanced QUIC protocol handling, parallel processing, and robust validator infrastructure.

Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and community figures have called it “bullish,” viewing it as evidence that past congestion issues are resolved. The same period saw a similar DDoS attack on Sui, which caused block production delays and degraded performance.

Solana’s unscathed operation underscores a “clear divergence in network resilience under adversarial stress,” as noted in community discussions. This positions Solana favorably against competitors like Sui for high-throughput applications, potentially attracting more developers and users seeking reliable performance.

Real-world proof of handling “industrial-scale” traffic, billions of packets per second without disruption builds trust. It signals readiness for high-frequency trading (HFT), DeFi at scale, and institutional flows.

Sources describe this as placing Solana “alongside hyperscale cloud platforms” like Google Cloud or Cloudflare in terms of enduring massive attacks, reinforcing its reputation for speed and reliability.

The crypto community widely views this as a positive catalyst, with posts emphasizing “years of iteration paying off” and the network being battle-tested.

While SOL’s price saw short-term pressure amid broader market weakness, the event is seen as long-term bullish, potentially driving adoption as markets recognize the tech’s strength over fear-driven dips.

DDoS attacks remain a threat to public networks, but Solana’s defense—leveraging decentralized validators (~830+ active) and traffic filtering—demonstrates that well-engineered Layer 1s can absorb internet-scale assaults.

This sets a benchmark for the industry, especially as blockchains handle more real-world value. Overall, this incident transforms a potential vulnerability into a strength, validating Solana’s architecture in production under extreme conditions.

It’s a milestone showing the network has evolved from “fast but fragile” to “fast and robust.” CoinTelegraph, CryptoNews, Coinpedia, and on-chain metrics shared via Solana community posts. Solana’s official status page shows no incidents reported.