Solana goes all-in: WSOP deal lets players ante with $SOL and cash out in stablecoins 🃏

The Solana Foundation announced a collaboration with the World Series of Poker that will let players buy into WSOP events using crypto and, starting in December at WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas, receive tournament payouts in stablecoins. The Swiss-based nonprofit said the integration will use payments infrastructure from crypto firm MoonPay, with entrants paying zero processing fees when buying in with $SOL or Solana-based stablecoins. The Solana Foundation will also serve as the official presenting sponsor of the 2026 World Series of Poker and WSOP Paradise, with Solana branding featured across the broadcast set and at events, including on the table felt.

Solana Foundation Chief Product Officer Vibhu Norby framed the partnership as a streamlining of money movement within the poker ecosystem. "Introducing Solana-powered buy-ins and payouts modernizes how money moves through the poker ecosystem and reduces friction for players around the world," Norby told Decrypt. "Poker players like to optimize their funds, and gravitate towards seamless, faster experiences. With Solana, players are able to buy-in with zero fees, and receive their winnings instantaneously, so we expect to see strong adoption of these offerings," he added. Norby said the Foundation will measure the collaboration's success in part by adoption of crypto buy-ins and stablecoin payouts, alongside the long-term growth of both the WSOP and Solana communities. "There is a huge opportunity to tap into this audience, and we look to grow both the Solana community and game of poker," he said.

MoonPay Commerce President Jim Walker highlighted the cross-border appeal of the arrangement. "Crypto is a natural fit," Walker said in a statement. "By powering buy-ins and payouts through MoonPay on Solana, we're meeting that demand directly: faster, borderless payments that make it simple for players anywhere to take their seat at the world's biggest tables." The organizations pointed to faster payment processing and broader accessibility, particularly for international players, as the principal benefits. The pair also said they will collaborate on on-chain poker products for release at a later date.

In a separate Solana development, the Alpenglow protocol upgrade moved closer to a mainnet rollout on Monday. Solana research and development firm Anza said Alpenglow went live on the community test cluster, allowing Solana validator operators to begin testing the consensus upgrade ahead of its push to mainnet. "This is a really exciting milestone," Anza Lead Economist Max Resnick told Decrypt. "The Alpenglow source code is mature enough in Agave master that we c[an]…" with Anza characterizing the activation as a key step in efforts to make Solana's layer-1 network significantly faster. The World Series of Poker hosts approximately 50 events worldwide and has paid out tens of millions of dollars in prize money across its history.