Under the catalysis of projects such as Robinhood, xStocks, and Republic, a large number of companies on-chain stocks have appeared in the Solana ecosystem, and an unprecedented coin-stock linkage experiment is underway. After continuing to increase its holdings of SOL in the past few months, Upexis holdings exceeded 730,000 SOL, becoming the Nasdaq-listed company with the most SOL. It also recently announced that it will tokenize its SEC-registered stocks on Solana through Superstates Opening Bell platform.
Another SOL microstrategy company SOL Strategies is planning to launch tokenized stocks on the same platform. They are both trying to build a three-layer circulation structure, using traditional equity (or debt) financing to purchase SOL assets, unlocking liquidity through on-chain tokenization, and ultimately using the DeFi protocol to achieve capital circulation amplification. The success or failure of this model will directly affect the integration process of traditional finance and on-chain finance.
Did the company that bought SOL really make money?
The two companies that are about to launch Opening Bell this time both use SOL as their core asset, but their financing models and holding strategies are different. From the perspective of financing scale and execution methods, Upexi has chosen a more aggressive path. On April 21, 2025, Upexi announced that it would raise $100 million through a PIPE private placement, led by the well-known crypto market maker GSR. 43,859,649 common shares were issued at a price of $2.28 per share. After deducting operating expenses from the raised funds, about $530 million was used to repay debts, and the remaining funds were specifically used to establish the SOLana vault and increase SOL assets. According to Arif Kazi, a company executive, the price per share of this financing was higher than the market price at the time, and no lock-up or token additional terms were set. Upexi then quickly bought SOL assets. As of June 30 , it held about 735,692 SOLs, worth about $110 million at market price. The average prices of the three major purchases were US$135.22, US$141.10, and US$151.50, respectively. The comprehensive average cost was approximately US$142 per SOL. This part of the SOL assets still has a premium of about 10% compared to the current price (US$157).
In a recent announcement, the company plans to obtain an annualized return of about 7%-9% by staking SOL, and will deploy mining machines, nodes, staking and DeFi businesses in the SOL ecosystem. If most of the SOL has been pledged as stated in the announcement, Upexis annual income from SOL staking will reach US$8.8 million without reducing holdings and the average price of SOL does not fluctuate much. These earnings are not shared directly with the companys shareholders but added to the treasury, and the net asset value per share (NAV per share) is directly increased by asset appreciation, that is, the SOL content per share. Calculated based on 38.2 million outstanding shares, each share corresponds to approximately 0.0192 SOL (worth approximately US$2.97). The accumulation of staking income may further push up the value of SOL per share, thereby supporting the rise in stock prices.
SOL Strategies, on the other hand, adopted convertible bond financing. On April 23, 2025, the company announced a $500 million convertible bond quota arrangement with ATW Partners, specifically for the purchase and pledge of SOL. The first phase of $20 million in funds arrived around May 1, which was used to purchase SOL and pledge it on its validator node. The remaining funds of up to $480 million can be withdrawn in batches according to market conditions. The convertible bond is converted into company stock at the market price, and the interest is paid at 85% of the pledge yield of the actual SOL collected.
As of June 30 , SOL Strategies SOL holdings have grown from the initial approximately 267,321 SOL (market value of approximately US$40 million) to 392,667 SOL. The average purchase cost of each SOL is approximately US$153.53. In terms of the currency price, there is almost no significant loss or gain.
Its reported average yield on currently pledged SOL is about 7.53%, although part of the income is similar to Upxie, reinvesting the income into the treasury or node staking to increase net assets per share. However, the agreement in the cooperation with ATW Partners is that 85% of the pledge income generated by the SOL purchased and pledged by the facility, and the interest on this debt portion is paid to the creditor in the form of SOL. This model creates a relatively self-sustaining financial cycle, generating income for every dollar of capital invested from the first day. In addition, in terms of conversion terms, convertible bonds can also be converted into company shares at the market price, specifically the market price on the day before the conversion. This arrangement is exempt from registration under Canadian and U.S. securities laws, complies with Ontario Securities Commission Rule 72-503, and does not require the statutory holding period of Canadian securities laws.
The share prices of listed companies that bought counterfeit products have collapsed. Can the chain continue to increase the net asset value premium?
After purchasing SOL through financing in the form of PIPE or debt-for-equity swaps, Upexi and SOL Strategies have verified in some form the feasibility of the functional returns of assets such as SOL, but this is only the first two steps, and there are indeed some systemic risks in the stock price presentation.
For example, after Upexi reported PIPE financing on April 21, 2025, its stock price rose from about $2.3 to an intraday high of $16.8, a 630% increase. However, after the PIPE shares were unblocked on June 23 and investors registered for resale, the stock price fell by about 60% in a single day, and then further fell to about $3.26 on the 25th, cutting more than 77% in just two days, almost wiping out the stock price gains before the strategy. After the financing was completed, Upexis net asset value per share quickly rose from about 4 times to more than 7 times, but it quickly fell back after the PIPE shares were unblocked, and is now close to the NAV level per share.
SOLStrategies initial financing and acquisition methods were not as aggressive as Upexis, but it also encountered similar problems. After announcing convertible bond financing on April 23, the stock price rose by more than 18%, and closed up 7% the next day. By the beginning of June, when the Q2 financial report and on-chain pilot were disclosed, the stock price rose from 1.8 Canadian dollars to 2.42 Canadian dollars, an increase of about 34%. However, as of July 2025, the stock price has fallen by about 60% from its high point, so its NAV premium has also dropped from about 5 times in Q2 to about 4.5 times.
The next on-chain channel for listed companies - Opening Bell
In fact, most of the listed companies with the coin stock concept have encountered similar difficulties, and Upexi and SOLStrategies have taken advantage of the recent U.S. stocks on the chain to take the lead in starting the transformation of on-chain stock strategies and market structures. After Superstate launched Opening Bell, SOL Strategies, a Canadian listed company, announced plans to list on Nasdaq, but before ringing the bell on Nasdaq, they chose to ring the bell on Superstate first. On May 8, 2025, they first announced that their companys stocks would be listed on the platform. After approval by regulatory authorities, SOL Strategies stocks will be traded on Solana this summer. Immediately afterwards, Upexi announced on June 26, 2025 that it would tokenize shares through the Opening Bell platform, and both parties became the first participants in the platform.
Opening Bell currently chooses to be built on Solana first (there are plans for other chains such as Ethereum later), interacting with the USTB and USCC issued by Superstate, and the companys shares will be recorded and tokenized by Superstates SEC-registered, blockchain-enabled share registration agency. Unlike other mirror tokens, this form will not be synthetic exposure or wrapped tokens, but the first time that the companys actual shares are actually on the chain. And what is quite ceremonial is that, similar to Nasdaq, Superstate said that when the company is listed on Opening Bell, it will ring the bell at Superstates head office in New York.
For companies that have already gone public, Opening Bell provides a virtual cross-chain bridge from reality to Crypto. For companies that have not yet gone public, Opening Bell is more like the Pre Market of Nasdaq or NYSE, providing the ability to open shares to crypto users in the crypto-native market, providing different capital exposures for future official listings.
Can Opening Bell really save “coin-stock concept stocks”?
At present, whether it is Upexi, SOL Strategies or other coin-buying companies, the core support of their NAV per share comes almost entirely from the market value of the SOL they hold. Many people in the community are concerned about whether they will use the nesting doll path to create a coin-stock bubble, using PIPE or convertible bonds to finance the purchase of SOL, and then tokenizing the companys stocks on the chain, and then using the stocks as collateral assets in DeFi for lending, thereby releasing new investable capital and realizing the flywheel structure of buying SOL-collateralizing-reinvesting.
However, the stock issuance and trading of the Opening Bell platform are still under a strict regulatory framework. The platform requires investors to pass KYC certification and complete relevant education before they can save on-chain shares (Token Shares) in a pre-approved whitelist wallet. At this stage, only existing shareholders, investors who have passed Superstate KYC certification, and cooperative wallets that comply with KYC have whitelist rights. In other words, on-chain stock trading is currently limited to approved accounts, and investors cannot freely put tokenized stocks into any DeFi protocol for mortgage and lending.
But at the same time, Superstate and Solana Policy Institute and other institutions have submitted a pilot proposal called Project Open to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The proposal envisions that within the scope of restricted issuers, some US companies can natively issue, register and trade their stocks on public chains such as SOLana. The transaction process also needs to be completed in an approved whitelist wallet, and the authority of the regulator to intervene and modify at any time is set. If the SEC ultimately approves, it means that stocks can be delivered globally around the clock and in real time like cryptocurrencies; if not, the traditional trading model will continue.
Robert Leshner, CEO of Superstate, said in an interview that he is betting on a new generation of cryptocurrency-first investors. This is a huge wave of capital that doesnt care about brokerage accounts, only blockchain wallets, and they want to be able to trade in the way they are used to. I really think this is a brand new capital market that is ready for enterprises to join. He added that hedge funds and venture capital firms around the world have become fascinated by crypto-native channels, and pointed out that Superstate has 150 institutional clients worldwide, including well-known institutions such as Arrington Capital, BitGo, CoinFund, Flowdesk and ParaFi.
This path undoubtedly provides more entry channels for institutional investors. However, whether the net asset value premium can be supported in the long term still depends on the sustainability of the underlying assets. Unlike Bitcoin, which has a strong consensus, SOL, as a yield-oriented asset, relies more on scenarios such as staking and DeFi use to maintain its value anchor. If the on-chain stocks cannot be quickly absorbed and embedded in the DeFi ecosystem, such as if they cannot effectively enter the lending market or become market-making basic assets, such companies will be more likely to be regarded by the market as copycat versions of MicroStrategy, and their valuation system will quickly return to the old path of SOL position discount + traditional business discount, rather than entering a new paradigm of asset tool-based enterprises.
Upexi has already listed its own stocks on Webull Corporate Connect and launched Nasdaq derivatives trading, while laying out the Opening Bell tokenization path on the chain. Its dual-market trading structure makes its stock fluctuations not only depend on the companys fundamentals and SOL prices, but also on factors such as on-chain liquidation and leverage runs. This type of high-leverage structure may attract the attention of crypto arbitrageurs and professional DeFi users in the short term, bringing a phased influx of capital and a jump in valuation, but it also means that stock prices will become monetized and their volatility may far exceed what traditional market investors can bear.
Once the on-chain leverage is too high and asset prices fluctuate violently, the reverse liquidation mechanism may quickly turn a stock price surge into a stampede collapse. For companies trying to achieve NAV premium continuation through on-chain life extension, this is a double-edged sword. If a real on-chain financial closed loop is not formed, the pricing of such companies is more likely to return to the crypto position + revenue discount model, and the valuation imagination space they originally hoped for may be compressed.
