< misaligned with ETH, Solana released a new positioning > for ICM Ethereum has firmly occupied the position of "global settlement layer", while Solana has chosen a different path: creating the default execution layer for on-chain capital markets. This is not just a matter of higher TPS, but a composable, programmable, and permissionless mechanism that rewrites the way the capital market operates. Just yesterday, @aeyakovenko pulled in core Solana participants such as @MaxResnick1, @Austin_Federa, and @KyleSamani to release the "Internet Capital Markets (ICM)" roadmap. This is not a narrative chasing RWA hotspots, but a fundamental reshaping of Solana's infrastructure role: from a high-performance public chain to an application-centric financial operating system. Traditional financial pain points vs. on-chain market opportunities The traditional capital market is dominated by intermediaries, with slow transactions, high thresholds, and fragmented liquidity. On-chain native marketplaces have natural advantages: composable, programmable, and round-the-clock. However, in reality, RWA projects often only put assets on the chain, and the real transactions and settlements are still completed off-chain. It is this misalignment that ICM (originally proposed by @akshaybd) wants to solve. Make the on-chain a place for transaction execution, not just an asset display layer. To achieve this, it is not just as simple as "issuing a token on the chain", but also requires underlying performance improvement, market structure liberalization, and synergy with the regulatory framework. Core Concept: Application-Controlled Execution (ACE) Currently, most on-chain transaction orders are uniformly scheduled by the consensus layer, and applications are passively received. ACE, on the other hand, proposes a paradigm shift: the right to rank is in the hands of the protocol, and the transaction rules are customized by the application. Protocols like Drift and Jito will receive design rights similar to market makers to optimize their own market microstructures. The ultimate goal is to tokenize mainstream assets such as stocks, bonds, foreign exchange, and IP on the chain by 2027, entering a market system without intermediaries, global flow, and on-chain native. The three modules of the roadmap: Application-led microstructure design: Developers can customize multiple key dimensions to achieve full control over the market operation logic: • Privacy vs transparency • Speed limit mechanism vs full open • Transaction inclusivity vs. strong finality • Centralized deployment vs decentralized execution •Maker-first vs Taker-first • Flexible architecture vs preset rules Jito's BAM is a prime example of moving from "speed is king" to "rule programmable," laying the first cornerstone of ACE's practice. ...