The Era of Solana DATs: Companies Scooping Up SOL

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If Bitcoin has MicroStrategy,

Solana now has a growing list of DATs (Digital Asset Treasuries).

Through 2024–2025, a number of listed companies have started to adopt a “core business + Solana treasury” model, stacking SOL directly on their balance sheets. These are not casual holders with a bit of crypto on the side. Many of them:

  • Raise large amounts of capital through equity offerings,

  • Use that cash to buy SOL directly, and

  • Deploy most of it into staking and DeFi strategies,

effectively turning themselves into publicly traded Solana funds.

Note: On Solana there is also a meme token called DAT (Digital ASSet Treasury).
In this post, I’m using DAT to mean corporate / listed-vehicle digital asset treasuries, not the token.

coingecko : SOL DAT DFDV
coingecko : SOL DAT DFDV

What Is a DAT (Digital Asset Treasury)?

A DAT (Digital Asset Treasury) is, in short, a listed corporate wrapper created to hold digital assets, usually centered around one main token. Think of it as a public company whose primary reason to exist is to accumulate and manage crypto on its balance sheet.

Three points matter most:

1. The Core Strategy Is “Accumulate a Specific Coin”

  • For a SOL-focused DAT, the mission is simple:
    “Acquire and hold as much SOL as possible, and put it to work.”

  • The company’s original business (medical devices, consumer brands, football clubs, etc.) often becomes secondary, while treasury management moves to the center.

2. A “Coin Wrapper” Listed on the Stock Market

  • Investors can get Solana exposure not by buying SOL directly,
    but by buying a ticker on Nasdaq/NYSE/CSE that holds SOL behind the scenes.

  • It’s similar to a Bitcoin trust or spot ETF, but because a DAT is a corporation, it can:

    • Stake and do complex DeFi strategies,

    • Use leverage, raise more capital,

    • Engage in M&A or other corporate actions.

3. Premium/Discount + Corporate Risk

  • The stock can trade at a premium or discount to the theoretical value of the SOL it holds (its NAV).

  • At the same time, a DAT is still just a regular company, which means:

    • Dilution risk from new offerings,

    • Management risk and governance issues,

    • Regulatory and listing risks
      all flow through to shareholders.

Some research notes estimate that by October 2025, ETH-focused DATs hold around 3–4% of Ethereum’s supply, and SOL-focused DATs hold 2–3% of Solana’s supply.
In other words, corporate wrappers are starting to meaningfully absorb L1 token supply.

2025: The “Year One” of Solana DATs and Treasuries

Solana DATs and treasury-style companies began appearing in late 2024, but 2025 is when the narrative really exploded.

As of late Q3–Q4 2025:

  • Roughly 18 Solana treasury companies have been identified,

  • Together they hold around 20.9 million SOL,

  • Which is about 3–4% of total SOL supply, depending on the data source.

Other reports put the figure closer to 15–16 million SOL (~2.5% of supply) at an earlier snapshot. Methodologies differ, but the big picture is consistent:

“A low single-digit percentage of Solana’s supply is already locked in corporate / listed treasuries.”

One estimate also suggests that SOL treasury capital has surpassed roughly $800 million, roughly matching the early-stage size of ETH treasuries a few months back.

In short:

2025 is the first year that institutions and listed companies started to hold SOL at real scale.

The Main Players: Who’s Hoarding SOL?

1. Forward Industries (FORD)

  • Holdings: Roughly 6.8 million SOL, making it the largest single Solana treasury among listed companies.

  • Deal Structure: In September 2025, Forward announced a $1.65 billion PIPE financing led by firms like Galaxy, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital to build what they call “the world’s largest Solana DAT strategy.”

  • Why It Matters:

    • The company started as a design/medical tech firm,

    • But is now positioning itself as a kind of “democratized MicroStrategy for Solana.”

2. Solana Company (HSDT.US)

  • Holdings: Around 2.3 million SOL, with about 100,000 SOL added over the most recent 30-day window.

  • Strategy:

    • Rebranded itself as “Solana Company”, very literally,

    • Publicly committing to a long-term treasury + staking strategy focused on SOL.

  • Positioning:

    • Often seen as the “No. 2 Solana DAT” by holdings,

    • Notable for a relatively steady accumulation pattern compared to more event-driven players.

3. DeFi Development Corp / Upexi / Sharps Technology / SOL Strategies

This group shares the same template: “legacy business + large Solana holdings.”

  • DeFi Development Corp

    • Originated as a real-estate software company,

    • Pivoted into a Solana treasury play,

    • Reported holdings of ~2.0M SOL (ballpark).

  • Upexi

    • Once a consumer products / e-commerce company,

    • Raised up to ~$100M to acquire SOL,

    • Also holding over 2 million SOL as part of its treasury ramp-up.

  • Sharps Technology

    • A medical device manufacturer,

    • Announced plans to raise up to ~$400M and adopt a Solana treasury strategy.

  • SOL Strategies (CSE: HODL / NASDAQ: STKE)

    • One of the first to combine a Solana treasury with validator operations under a public entity.

    • They don’t just hold SOL – they also run validators, aiming to capture validator rewards + staking yields on top of price exposure.

4. Solmate (formerly Brera Holdings)

  • Background:

    • Originally a sports holding company owning football clubs in multiple countries.

    • In September 2025, it announced a full pivot into “Solmate”, a Solana DAT / infrastructure company.

  • Deal Structure:

    • ARK Invest, the Solana Foundation, and UAE-based Pulsar Group took part in a $300M private placement.

    • After the announcement, the stock rallied up to +460% in two days, followed by heavy volatility.

  • Narrative:

    • “A Solana DAT that owns football clubs” is a powerful story, blending crypto + sports + Middle Eastern capital in one package.

5. Helius – The “5% of Supply” Ambition

  • Helius is well-known as a Solana infrastructure and developer tooling provider.

  • In October 2025, the team publicly floated the idea of buying at least 5% of Solana’s supply as part of a DAT-style strategy.

  • If executed at scale, this single move could push the combined DAT share of supply from ~3–4% to potentially 8–9% or more, depending on timing and price.

Investing in DATs: Upside and Traps

If you’re looking at Solana DAT / treasury names, there are at least three big things to check.

1) Premium/Discount vs NAV

Each DAT has a theoretical NAV (Net Asset Value) based on:

  • The amount of SOL (and other assets) it holds,

  • Its average cost basis,

  • Staking yields and any other treasury income.

The stock can trade:

  • Above NAV → premium (reflecting market hype or expectations),

  • Below NAV → discount (reflecting fear, distrust, or forced selling).

In 2025, several Solana DATs briefly traded at very high premiums to NAV during hype phases, before snapping back when sentiment cooled.

2) Staking and DeFi Strategy

Most Solana DATs do one thing in common:
They stake almost all of their SOL.

  • Traditional staking yields on SOL have sat roughly in the 6–8% APY range.

  • Some DATs go further by:

    • Using LSTs (liquid staking tokens),

    • Deploying capital in Solana DeFi (lending, LP strategies, options, etc.),

    • Trying to squeeze out additional yield on top of staking.

But this adds:

  • Smart contract risk,

  • Protocol risk, hacks, and rug-pull risk on the DeFi side.

So you’re not only betting on SOL itself, but also on how safely and competently the treasury is being managed.

3) The Company Itself Still Matters

At the end of the day, a DAT is a public company. That means you also have to look at:

  • Dilution patterns (PIPEs, ATMs, secondary offerings),

  • Management’s track record and alignment with shareholders,

  • Cash flows from the legacy/core business,

  • Regulatory and delisting risks.

Some institutional reports note: if you simply want pure Solana price exposure, a DAT is not necessarily more efficient than holding SOL or a future ETF.

The potential advantage appears when:

  • Treasury operations (staking + DeFi + validator rewards) are run well enough to generate consistent excess returns over “hold + vanilla staking.”

2025 in Review: A Year in the Life of Solana DATs

Right before we talk about 2026, let’s compress 2025 into a simple timeline.

1. Early Phase – “Pilot” DATs

  • Late 2024 to early 2025:

    • Names like SOL Strategies, Torrent Capital, Upexi, and others began quietly building SOL positions.

    • Treasury language started to show up in filings, but the market wasn’t fully focused yet.

2. Spring–Summer – The Narrative Spreads

  • By mid-2025, data providers and researchers began tracking “Solana treasury companies” as a separate category.

  • Every time a listed company announced “We’ve bought X million SOL,” its stock would often:

    • Spike a few hundred percent,

    • Then give back a large portion as the trade got crowded,

    • A classic crypto-driven pump-and-dump pattern.

3. September–October – The Solana DAT Era Officially Arrives

  • Forward Industries announces its $1.65B Solana DAT PIPE,

  • Brera pivots and rebrands into Solmate, marrying sports IP with Solana infrastructure and treasury,

  • Helius drops the bomb about targeting 5% of SOL supply,

  • By late September, it’s widely reported that:

    • 18 Solana treasury companies exist,

    • Holding ~20.9M SOL,

    • Roughly 3.5%+ of supply, depending on the snapshot.

4. Year-End – DATs Enter the Institutional Conversation

  • Major research shops begin to treat Solana DATs as a legitimate institutional wrapper structure,

  • Solana’s story is no longer just about:

    • Retail traders,

    • Meme coins,

    • DeFi degens,
      but also about listed companies and professional treasuries holding SOL on balance sheet.

In one sentence:

2025 is the year Solana moved from “retail casino” to “appearing on corporate balance sheets at scale.”

2026 Outlook: Where Do DATs and SOL Go From Here?

Now for the fun part: 2026 scenarios.
(Everything below is opinion and scenario-building, not investment advice.)

1) Base Case – DAT Share of Supply Keeps Rising

  • As of end-2025, DAT/treasury holdings represent roughly 3–4% of SOL supply.

  • If:

    • Helius really pursues a 5% supply target, and

    • Existing players like Forward, Solana Company, and Solmate keep accumulating,

    then by late 2026, it’s not hard to imagine 5–8% of SOL’s total supply sitting inside DATs and corporate treasuries.

If that happens:

  • A meaningful portion of SOL’s float will be:

    • Locked up in long-term treasuries,

    • Staked and relatively illiquid.

In a strong bull market, that kind of structural illiquidity can amplify upside moves – a supply squeeze on top of demand growth.

2) Bear Case – DAT Bubble Pops and Re-Ratings Hit

The value of a DAT stock is essentially:

SOL price × number of SOL held × (1 ± premium/discount)

So in a negative scenario where:

  • Global regulation turns more hostile toward crypto, or

  • SOL enters a prolonged downtrend,

DAT names likely get hit twice:

  1. From the fall in SOL price, and

  2. From a premium → discount re-rating as sentiment collapses.

We already saw hints of this in 2025:

  • Several names experienced:

    • Wild multi-hundred-percent rallies on announcement,

    • Followed by deep drawdowns when hype faded and reality kicked in.

In 2026, expect sharper separation between quality DATs and pure “pump vehicles.”

3) Opportunity – Staking/DeFi + Real Business Synergy

Long term, the DATs most likely to survive and matter will share a few traits:

  • Large and transparent SOL holdings,

  • Proven ability to run staking/DeFi strategies safely,

  • A core business that actually synergizes with the Solana ecosystem, such as:

    • Validator infrastructure,

    • Developer tooling,

    • Real-world IP (sports, media, gaming) that can be tokenized on Solana.

Examples of this direction:

  • SOL Strategies, combining validator operations with a treasury.

  • Solmate, trying to connect football clubs, fan engagement, and tokens into Solana’s infrastructure stack.

These are early experiments, but they go beyond the simple model of “we just bought a lot of SOL, and that’s the story.”

Closing Thoughts

To wrap up:

  1. DATs are an emerging institutional wrapper for Solana exposure.

  2. In just one year, 2025, we’ve seen:

    • Over a dozen listed companies formally adopt Solana treasury strategies,

    • More than 20 million SOL absorbed into corporate treasuries.

  3. In 2026, the key battle lines will likely be:

    • Accumulation vs. regulation,

    • Genuine infrastructure plays vs. hollow “pump-only” shells,

    • Simple price exposure vs. smarter, yield-enhanced treasury management.

My goal with this post was to give you a clear map of the companies that are actively accumulating SOL, and to show how the Solana DAT trend evolved through 2025 and where it might head next.

From here, the real edge will come from your own filter:

  • Which DATs actually contribute to the Solana ecosystem?

  • How do DAT stocks fit into a broader SOL strategy (spot, futures, options, staking)?

  • For a Korean retail investor, what’s the most realistic way to use these tickers alongside direct SOL exposure?

Answering those questions is where this macro narrative turns into an actual portfolio strategy.

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