Why Are Corporates Stacking SOL? 💰
Hello, y'all. Happy Saturday.
The Solana treasury movement has shifted from trickle to torrent.
About four months ago, we wrote about Sol Strategies busy building a Solana treasury company. Today, the competition has gotten more serious and, well, memey.
In the annals of "things we didn't see coming," a public company partnering with a memecoin to run blockchain infrastructure ranks pretty high. Yet here we are: Less than two weeks ago, DeFi Development Corp (DFDV), another Solana treasury company, collaborated with Solana meme coin Bonk.
They aren’t just goofing around.
Two days ago, DFDV said it would allocate a portion of its SOL holdings into a Liquid Staking Token (LST) that can be used in DeFi apps or transferred — all while earning yield and staking rewards.
Corporate treasury management has gone full crypto-native. Far beyond from companies buying Bitcoin to firms running validators, partnering with memecoins, and now pioneering liquid staking strategies.
In this week’s Wormhole, we dive deep to see the point behind stacking Solana, while most others — including those connected to the US President Donald Trump — that are rushing to stack Bitcoin.
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The Rush
DeFi Development Corporation, rebranded in April 2025 from ‘Janover’ — a real estate company, made its largest Solana purchase on May 12 by adding 172,670 SOL to its treasury. That takes its total holdings to 609,233, worth more than $100 million in value.
That’s accounts for a third of company’s total market cap.
The stock market loves it.
DFDV's scrip shot up 30x in the last two months after its rebrand. Since shifting its focus to investment in Solana.
Not to be outdone, Canadian firm Sol Strategies filed a preliminary base shelf prospectus with local securities regulators to raise up to $1 billion to further its investment in the Solana ecosystem.
New players keep joining.
Classover Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed ed-tech company, has planned a Solana-centric strategy with a $400 million facility, while DIGITALX, has increased its SOL holdings to accelerate staking revenue.
Why the rush, though? Multiple reasons.
Not to be outdone, Canadian firm Sol Strategies filed a preliminary base shelf prospectus with local securities regulators to raise up to $1 billion to further its investment in the Solana ecosystem.
New players keep joining.
Classover Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed ed-tech company, has planned a Solana-centric strategy with a $400 million facility, while DIGITALX, has increased its SOL holdings to accelerate staking revenue.
Why the rush, though? Multiple reasons.
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Does SOL Treasury Even Make Sense?
The Yield Game
Here's where Solana treasuries diverge from the Bitcoin playbook: they actually generate income.
DIGITALX highlight staking yields of 7-9% annually, expecting A$800,000 in additional yearly revenue. Compare that to Bitcoin's 0% yield, and you start to see the appeal.
These companies aren't content with basic staking. They're going full infrastructure mode. The liquid staking move by DeFi Development represents the next evolution: maintaining liquidity while earning yields, having your cake and staking it too.
With that, the firm became the first publicly traded company to own liquid staking tokens on Solana.
That BONK partnership? That will enable the pair to collectively increase the delegated stake, or the amount of Solana tokens committed to its validator, sharing rewards in the process. It's community engagement meets treasury management.
"DFDV and BONK are their own category leaders. By joining forces, we can reap the benefits of each other's own unique positioning and brand awareness,” Parker White, CIO and COO of DeFi Development told Decrypt.
The Validator and Governance Play
These companies are doing something beyond buying and holding SOL — they're becoming infrastructure providers.
On May 5, DeFi Development Corp announced a definitive agreement to acquire a Solana validator business with an average delegated stake of about 500,000 SOL ($75.5 million).
This creates a "flywheel" effect for the company: reinvesting yield to accumulate more SOL to further expand validator capacity. This is in stark contrast to what Saylor is doing with Strategy.
By running validators, companies can
Influence network governance
Build relationships with projects
Potentially incubate or invest in Solana-based startups
Create additional revenue streams beyond treasury appreciation
The Speed and Scale Story
Solana is much faster in terms of the number of transactions it can process and has significantly lower transaction fees than rival blockchains like Ethereum. For companies looking beyond just treasury value, this opens possibilities that Bitcoin simply can't match.
Unlike Bitcoin, which is largely used to move value across the network, Solana can power decentralised finance applications as well as consumer apps, games and more.
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Different Gameplays
Each company is playing this game differently:
DeFi Development Corp is the aggressive innovator.
Beyond accumulating 609,233 SOL, they're pioneering liquid staking and memecoin partnerships. "Crossing the $100 million mark in Solana purchases is a major milestone—but it's just the beginning," DeFi Development Corp. CEO Joseph Onorati told Decrypt.
SOL Strategies takes the institutional approach, focusing on becoming a premier staking platform with sophisticated treasury strategies. Their $1 billon prospectus filing shows ambitions beyond mere accumulation.
DIGITALX exemplifies the yield optimiser strategy, carefully calculating staking returns and highlighting the revenue potential to shareholders. They're treating SOL like a dividend-paying stock.
The Risk Profile
Not all’s that simple though. Some reality check into this party.
First, the macro trap: These strategies feast on cheap capital. Most SOL buyers are raising through convertible notes or equity facilities. When liquidity dries up — and it always does eventually — the music stops.
Second, the regulatory time bomb: Marco Santori said the firm's SOL treasury strategy lets the firm manoeuver in ways that a "simple, passive" fund cannot. That's great until regulators decide your "treasury" looks suspiciously like an unregistered investment fund.
Third, yield compression is coming. As more validators pile in, that juicy 7-9% will shrink. It's economics 101: increased supply of validators means decreased rewards per validator.
The infrastructure burden is real too. Running validators isn't passive income — it's an operational business with technical overhead, upgrade requirements, and slashing risks. Miss an update window? That's money lost.
DeFi Development Corp trades at a volatility of 700%, Dan Kang said in a Lightspeed podcast. That makes Bitcoin look like a stablecoin. Factor in Solana's history of network outages, and you're betting on both price and reliability.
The MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) game will eventually favour the biggest players, just like on Ethereum.
Then there's competition. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not approved any spot Solana ETFs as of May 21, but when they do, these treasury companies lose their unique selling proposition. Why buy DFDV when you can buy a Solana ETF? But the same can be said about Strategy’s Bitcoin bet, innit?
Token Dispatch View 🔍
The ongoing Solana treasury phenomenon shows that it has evolved beyond what used to be passive balance sheet allocations. They have turned into active infrastructure plays generating real yield.
The innovation is in packaging complex DeFi operations into familiar corporate structures.
But let's be clear: this is a high-wire act. These companies are simultaneously betting on Solana's price, network stability, validator economics, and their own operational excellence. When it works, it's beautiful — multiple revenue streams from a single asset. When it doesn't, you're explaining to shareholders why your "treasury" needs a DevOps team.
Those who can scale validator operations efficiently while navigating the coming yield compression will make the most out of this play. And those who expect today's yields to stay around tomorrow and beyond will have taken a miscalculated step.
When Bitcoin's 50% yearly gain is compared to Solana's almost nil returns over the past 12 months, it reminds us that yield isn't everything. But for companies willing to embrace operational complexity for additional returns, Solana treasuries offer something Bitcoin never can: cash flow from day one.
This is Treasury 2.0 — a strategy that allows your balance sheet to run code, earn yield, and occasionally partner with dog-themed cryptocurrencies.
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