Howdy!

These past few weeks have been our best for newsletter growth since we first launched in May, and I’m very grateful for all our readers, old and new. It’s going to be a big 2025!

Today, we’ve got a Sol Strategies highlight, Solana ETF odds, and a weekly news roundup.

Meet Sol Strategies, the MicroStrategy of Solana

Toronto-based Cypherpunk Holdings rebranded as Sol Strategies and announced it would be accumulating Solana three months ago. It’s gotten busy since then. 

The holding company has acquired two separate validator operations, accumulated over 142,000 SOL worth roughly $27 million at current prices, hired Kraken’s former senior director of engineering to be its head of staking, and applied to be listed on the Nasdaq. Just this week, it signed a credit facility with its board chair to buy $17.3 million worth of SOL tokens and announced a private placement deal with ParaFi Capital worth roughly $19 million.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor is fond of saying that “there is no second best” crypto behind bitcoin. If there is a second-best version of MicroStrategy’s corporate crypto purchasing playbook, it just might be the one Sol Strategies is running. 

Like Saylor’s firm, Sol Strategies is focused on acquiring crypto as a treasury asset. The difference, CEO Leah Wald told me, is that Sol Strategies also runs a validator business and invests in Solana ecosystem projects, making its approach “more dynamic.”

Following Sol Strategies’ two validator acquisitions, it now is responsible for a combined 1.5 million staked SOL, which makes it roughly the 65th largest Solana validator. Wald declined to say which ecosystem projects Sol Strategies has taken positions in, if any. 

Wald came to Cypherpunk Holdings in July 2024 after a four-year run at the helm of US-based crypto management firm Valkyrie, which had its ETF business acquired by CoinShares in March. Wald had been a board member at Cypherpunk since October 2021.

Charged with taking over a company that had seen its stock trade sideways for years, Wald — who was among the first to file for and issue bitcoin futures ETFs — saw a new opportunity. Solana was hot, but it lacked ETFs that investors could trade on traditional stock exchanges. So far, the SOL strategy appears to be working out. 

Since debuting as Sol Strategies in September, the company’s stock price is up more than 1,700% — and that’s while a Nasdaq listing is still pending approval.

There’s probably a storm approaching Sol Strategies’ parade in the form of Solana ETFs. Currently, Sol Strategies is one of just a few publicly-traded companies giving investors regulated exposure to Solana’s price action by virtue of holding the asset in its treasury. 

If Solana ETFs get approved, the market would gain competitors offering a similar service (although whether or not those ETF issuers include staking rewards will be key to watch). Sol Strategies will hope the market treats it like a bitcoin mining stock in that case.

But for now, Wald and Sol Strategies’ big bet is paying big dividends.

— Jack Kubinec

The market suddenly seems a lot less sure about these Solana ETFs:

The odds of SOL ETFs getting the SEC’s approval by the end of July dipped below 50% for the first time since they started trading in late November. 

You may have Blockworks’ own Katherine Ross to thank for this, as she threw cold water on the idea of SOL ETFs launching soon in a recent Empire newsletter segment.

— Jack Kubinec

ICYMI — Stories you may have missed from Solana land this week:

• Paladin, a fork of Jito-Solana, open-sourced its code. It claims to reduce 95% of MEV sandwich attacks while operating on 6% of Solana's network with support from 80+ validators.

• Raydium Protocol now offers Raydium Perpetuals, with gas-free trading on Solana, up to 40x leverage, and alleging the lowest fees on over 70 pairs during its public beta.

• Moonwalk Fitness launched an iOS app with gamified step contests and financial incentives, starting with a 300m $BONK prize pool, and with plans to release an Android version soon.

• Kern Protocol announced plans to airdrop 45.5% of its $KERN token supply to the Solana ecosystem, targeting DeFi users, memecoin holders, NFT projects and active wallets.

• Pulse unveiled the Series One — a Solana-based wearable with AI insights, 30+ fitness modes, wallet integration and data rewards. It’s offering a free upgrade to all previous pre-orders.

• GenesysGo distributed 52TB of decentralized storage across 335 nodes within hours of releasing the latest shdwDrive mobile app update.

• Starpower, a DePIN-based decentralized energy network on Solana, raised $4 million in a funding round led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Solana Ventures and AllianceDAO.

• Play Solana announced surpassing 3,000 sales of its PSG1 handheld gaming device, with Wave 1 set to close at 5,000 units.

— Jeffrey Albus

A message from Tom, core contributor to Raydium: