Listed Canadian crypto play Sol Strategies [CSE:HODL], the traded company previously known as Cypherpunk, has rewarded shareholders fantastically over the last few months. A decision by CEO Leah Wald to re-position the company, once ranked as a top 20 holder of Bitcoin, into Solana, seems to be paying off.
Shares in the CSE-traded stock are now up by almost 5000% since October. Back in Q4 Sol Strategies said it would be using USDC it received from the Lucy Labs Offshore Fund, which went down with the FTX collapse, to invest in Solana. The company had already re-branded in September 2024 to reflect a shift towards Solana.
HODL now seeks to offer its shareholders exposure to Solana through its direct investing and staking activities. By staking SOL, Solana’s native token, and potential future investments in Solana-based projects and infrastructure, Sol Strategies is looking to benefit from the potential growth of Solana and its other investments.
Shares in Sol Strategies were trading at around 20 cents Canadian at the end of September. At time of writing they had risen to CAD 5.47 and recently peaked at over CAD 6.00. Some of this gain has been driven by the Trump election victory and the anticipated more liberal environment for cryptocurrencies in the US, but HODL’s focus on Solana has also played a big role.
As of December the company was holding approximately CAD 46m in Solana and a further CAD 449,000 in Bitcoin. The market cap is currently almost CAD 800m.
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What is Solana?
Solana (SOL) is a cryptocurrency and blockchain platform that uses a proof-of-stake mechanism to enable smart contracts. It was created to be more scalable, faster, and cheaper than Ethereum, the most popular blockchain platform for decentralized applications.
Staking Solana is the process of entrusting some or all of your SOL tokens to a validator in exchange for earning rewards. This process helps to secure the Solana blockchain and maintain its integrity.
Sol Strategies is currently the only publicly-traded company that is offering investors direct exposure to the economics of SOL staking. This is now the key strategy for the company. It can act as a validator of Solana within the network and produce new blocks by staking its SOL tokens as collateral. The Solana is effectively HODL’s skin in the game of the blockchain network.
Proof-of-stake activity helps to keep the Solana blockchain decentralised and ensures no single user can become large enough to tamper with transactions. It also rewards owners who are helping to secure the protocol. Proof-of-stake also provides owners of Solana with an attractive yield and is widely regarded as one of the easiest ways to make passive income from crypto.
Prior to the US election, Standard Chartered had predicted a five fold increase in the Solana price if Donald Trump was to win the US election. Geoff Kendrick, Head of Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered, forecast a massive increase in the price of Solana because he saw a Trump administration being more supportive of the Solana ecosystem than Kamala Harris.
At time a writing the price of Solana was $234.94, up +154% over the last 12 months. It jumped from $180 just prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration.
