Leaders of the crypto industry want to raise another $1 billion to sell even more solana (SOL) treasury stock, despite a terrible track record of delivering returns to shareholders.
Jump Crypto, Galaxy Digital, Multicoin Capital, and Cantor Fitzgerald have secured an endorsement from the Solana Foundation to work on a share sale using the largest quantity of SOL on any public company’s balance sheet.
If the deal finalizes, their new public company would outrank the largest publicly traded SOL treasury, Upexi.
The arc of Upexi’s stock is similar to the stock of all other major SOL treasury companies: down. On April 21, in the midst of a springtime mania, investors valued Upexi at 10.4x more than the SOL on Upexi’s balance sheet. By July 24, that premium had declined 90%.
As of publication time, Upexi remains 65% off its high for this year.
Nor has its pivot into SOL fixed any of its long-term struggles. Over the last five years, Upexi’s stock has declined 92%.
A terrible year for Solana treasury stocks
As Upexi declined in price this year, another dealmaker called off plans to launch a SOL treasury company. Joe McCann’s Solana Digital Asset Treasury canceled plans for its $1.5 billion SPAC deal following backlash over the underperformance of its Asymmetric Financial fund.
Undeterred, Jump Crypto, Galaxy Digital, and Multicoin Capital are now returning to capital markets to try to drum up enthusiasm. They hope to raise three times more SOL than Upexi and top the leaderboard.
Galaxy Trading, one of the parties behind the deal, previously raised over $600 million for a SOL fund that purchased assets from the FTX bankruptcy estate sale.
Read more: Largest Solana treasury company falls below 1X mNAV
Unfortunately, almost every SOL treasury company has declined once the first few exuberant days of launch have passed. Upexi has declined 65% since April. DeFi Development is 68% off its May high. Exodus Movement is 77% off its year-to-date high. In Canada, Sol Strategies has lost 80% since its peak this year.
It is almost impossible to find any SOL treasury stock that has performed well. A couple foreign microcap penny stocks have managed to trade sideways on miniscule volume.
Combined, their market capitalization losses from their Solana treasury debuts earlier this year exceed $2 billion.
Nevertheless, Cantor Fitzgerald, Jump Crypto, Galaxy Digital, Multicoin Capital, and the Solana Foundation are optimistic about marketing another $1 billion deal.
