Two days before Breakpoint, the Solana Foundation released tools that let apps check, on-chain, that an AI is running inside sealed private hardware. Meanwhile the staking side of Wall Street keeps moving: BNY is adding staking to its crypto custody with SOL next in line, and VanEck's Solana ETF reported that 86% of its SOL is staked.
Private AI, checked on-chain
Solana Confidential Compute, built with private-AI startup Nito, went live Friday as a beta on devnet, Solana's test network (Solana Foundation on X, solana.ai). It tackles a simple problem: when an AI service says your prompts stayed private, you usually have to take its word for it.
The tools rely on trusted execution environments, or TEEs: walled-off areas inside a processor that even the server's owner can't see into. The chip signs a report, called an attestation, describing the code running inside. Solana Confidential Compute checks that report on-chain and records the result, so any app can look up whether a signing key belongs to verified hardware before it trusts that key's answers. After the one-time check, a lookup costs at most 1,500 compute units, cheap enough for a trading agent or prediction market to run inside its own transaction (Solana Compass).
The beta supports Intel TDX and AMD SEV-SNP chips, and NVIDIA GPU support is still being built. The Foundation says the code has not been audited and should only be used for development for now. Mainnet will follow the audit, and no date has been set (Crypto Briefing). Demos include an encrypted AI chat and a trading agent called Milo.
The release comes with solana.ai, a new Foundation hub for AI builders that also lists payment channels. In a September benchmark, that system handled more than one million off-chain payment authorizations per second for AI agents (Solana). Critics note that a benchmark is a capacity test, not real demand (CryptoSlate). AI agents headline Breakpoint's second day (Solana), so expect more here next week.
Staking goes institutional
BNY, the bank that already custodies SOL for Invesco Galaxy's QSOL ETF, will use Figment's validators to offer staking through its digital asset custody platform. Figment told The Block that ETH comes first, followed by SOL. No launch date was given (The Block, Figment).
Filings show what staking already looks like inside an ETF. VanEck's Solana ETF (VSOL) filed its third-quarter report Friday afternoon: it held 215,593 SOL on Sept. 30, with 185,897 of them staked, about 86%. Net staking income was $663,504 for the first nine months of 2026, on net assets of $25.6 million (10-Q via StreetInsider, Kalkine). Not every product is moving that fast: Volatility Shares pushed the effective date of its planned 3x Solana ETF back to Dec. 13 in a filing today (SEC).
Market check
Stocks closed lower as chipmakers slid. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite 0.91% (AP). At 3:45 PM ET, SOL was $80.08, down 1.7% in 24 hours. It held up better than bitcoin, at $68,857 (−3.6%), and ether, at $1,946 (−3.5%) (CoinGecko).
Why it matters for SOL: neither story moves the price today. Confidential Compute is an unaudited test release, and BNY's SOL staking has no date. But both point at Breakpoint's two themes, AI agents and institutional money. The real test is whether either one reaches mainnet or launches. Track the moves on the Catalyst Tracker and live prices on the Dashboard.
Prices as of ~3:45 PM ET on Nov 13, 2026.
Not investment advice. See our Disclaimer.
