Apps, customers, and income are all good, however what blockchains really want in 2025 is a Michael Saylor.
As Wall Street has swooned over public firms that purchase crypto, it’s turn into clear that Solana has a few disadvantages within the digital asset treasury (DAT) sport. It’s youthful and carries a smaller market cap than bitcoin or ether, so Wall Street is much less aware of it.
And within the eyes of some traders, SOL is lacking one thing else: a Michael Saylor-like determine who can sing the asset’s praises to mainstream traders.
The dearth of a Wall Street advocate has contributed to Solana’s wrestle to sustain with bitcoin and ether treasury firms. Whereas so-called DATs maintain roughly 3.4% and a pair of.9% of all BTC and ETH, respectively, they maintain simply 1% of SOL. And regardless of their rising quantity, the biggest Solana DAT is simply the tenth-largest DAT general.
In conversations on Solana’s search for a Michael Saylor or a Tom Lee, two widespread threads emerged: Solana wants a Wall Street figurehead to preserve tempo within the present market setting, and nobody is sort of certain who that particular person needs to be.
A number of sources instructed Blockworks that Solana’s model of Saylor needs to be somebody from a conventional finance background slightly than Solana’s present on-line orbit.
At Technique, Saylor has turned what was as soon as a middling software program firm inventory right into a bitcoin-buying behemoth with a internet asset worth — which is the market worth of its bitcoin holdings — of greater than $70 billion. His bullish X posts and TV appearances have turned him right into a de facto bitcoin spokesperson.
BitMine, a bitcoin mining firm that lately adopted an Ethereum treasury technique, seems to have caught the identical lightning in a bottle when it appointed Fundstrat chief funding officer and CNBC contributor Tom Lee as its chairman.
With Lee making common CNBC appearances to sing ETH’s praises and a Founders Fund funding offering legitimacy within the eyes of traders, BMNR has grown to turn into the second-largest treasury firm with a NAV of over $8 billion.
The ten largest DATs. Supply: Blockworks Research
Behind the scenes, DAT executives are casting round in search of public-facing Solana advocates.
One particular person concerned in a Solana DAT recounted asking ChatGPT who Michael Saylor’s equal could possibly be for a Solana treasury firm. The chatbot listed Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz, Uneven CEO Joe McCann, Solana co-founder Raj Gokal, and Solana Basis CEO Lily Liu.
The issue with well-known Solana figures like these is that they have a tendency to have “one thing [else] going on,” as a unique particular person working at a DAT put it.
In a textual content, Mumtaz stated he has been “approached by roughly all [Solana DATs] to be concerned in various capacities,” noting that he hasn’t made any last selections and including: “[I’m] general within the long-term well being of solana above all and am attempting to work out how finest I will help with that.”
McCann, who till lately would regularly submit about Solana to greater than 100,000 X followers, was tapped as CEO of a possible $1.5 billion Solana DAT. The deal fell aside after a restricted associate in McCann’s hedge fund posted in regards to the fund’s poor efficiency on X, Blockworks previously reported. McCann didn’t return a request for remark.
Gokal and a consultant for Liu didn’t return requests for remark on whether or not they intend to formally become involved in DATs.
Galaxy Digital, Multicoin Capital, and Bounce Crypto are reportedly plotting a $1 billion Solana DAT increase, in accordance to Bloomberg. Such a deal would contain two names that got here up in conversations about potential Solana DAT leaders: Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz and Multicoin managing associate Kyle Samani. However each have already got day jobs, so it’s unclear whether or not they’d need to take on a job akin to being CEO of a publicly traded firm.
Samani and Novogratz didn’t remark on their roles within the reported DAT.
Among the many CEOs of current Solana DATs, Sol Methods CEO Leah Wald exhibits promise as a public face for Solana, boasting a large on-line following and a formidable institutional crypto resume. Nonetheless, she has (up to now) performed a extra behind-the-scenes function because the Canadian holding firm awaits a hoped-for Nasdaq itemizing.
“I don’t see myself as a Saylor or a Lee. I’m secretly an introvert, and that job would imply approach an excessive amount of public talking. That’d be like being terrified of heights after which deciding to turn into a window washer on skyscrapers,” Wald stated in a textual content.
Due to the slim pickings in Solanaland, some DATs are pondering the best particular person is likely to be a relative unknown to Solana of us — as Saylor and Lee had been to bitcoin and ether earlier than assuming their present roles.
“In Tom Lee you could have two issues: He’s very comfy on CNBC, and he speaks to TradFi. I’ve been trying and haven’t discovered who that particular person can be,” stated one particular person working on a Solana DAT, who stated they’d thought-about making inroads with candidates starting from former White Home communications director Anthony Scaramucci to the meme inventory influencer Roaring Kitty.
Potential leaders additionally don’t come low-cost. Former BlackRock govt Joseph Chalom received a $7 million inventory grant plus a possible wage and long-term incentive bonus within the tens of millions to turn into co-CEO of SharpLink Gaming, the second-largest ETH treasury firm.
Chalom’s compensation package deal, one Solana DAT govt stated the value tag “could possibly be properly price it” for SharpLink. Even so, the chief famous, getting Wall Street compliance departments to log out on DAT partnerships is usually a problem.
“Our situation will not be getting it in entrance of those loopy high-level folks, it’s the strict compliance aspect of issues” that’s making it laborious to get well-known Wall Streeters on board, they stated.
It’s however turning into clear that Solana DATs intend to begin rolling out their very own variations of Saylor and Lee.
Final week, the crypto funding platform CoinList despatched some traders an e mail, reviewed by Blockworks, which marketed an “upcoming SOL treasury firm coming imminently to the general public market.”
“This anticipated automobile is at present in stealth, and we can’t disclose the main points. If accomplished, will probably be the biggest SOL treasury automobile on the market with a number of the most outstanding business backers, and the probably ‘Saylor of Solana,’” the e-mail stated.
The deal is predicted to shut and be introduced on September eighth, the e-mail stated. CoinList didn’t return a number of requests for remark.
Get the information in your inbox. Discover Blockworks newsletters:
