Solana DATs Will Outpace Bitcoin, Says Multicoin Capital Co-Founder

Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani believes Solana-native Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) have a structural advantage over Bitcoin-focused vehicles—and that the mechanics underpinning those DATs could become a durable, price-positive flywheel for ￰0￱ on Blockworks’ Empire podcast days after Forward Industries closed a $1.65 billion PIPE led by Galaxy, Jump, and Multicoin, Samani argued that Solana’s yield, composable DeFi, and on-chain corporate operations create cash flows and optionality that Bitcoin simply can’t ￰1￱ Solana DATs Beat Bitcoin “We’re building a new financial system from the ground up,” Samani said, framing Forward as both a proof-of-concept for “internet capital markets” and a scaled balance sheet that can systematically convert Solana’s technical and financial primitives into shareholder ￰2￱ immediate differentiator in his view: yield.

“Saylor is paying roughly 9% on MicroStrategy’s perpetual preferreds, but his core business produces effectively no cash flow… our vehicle will produce cash flow via two mechanisms at a bare ￰3￱ first… is the native SOL staking yield… roughly 8%. And the second is by doing this credit spread arbitrage,” he ￰4￱ Reading: Helius Joins Solana Treasury Trend With $500 Million Funding For New DAT Strategy By borrowing dollars from traditional lenders at single-digit rates and deploying into on-chain venues yielding “12–20% depending on what you’re doing,” Forward intends to use that spread, plus staking rewards, to service perpetual coupons—something a Bitcoin treasury cannot replicate because BTC is non-yielding.

“You can actually objectively show where the profits are coming from to pay the coupons,” he added, suggesting Solana DATs could even secure better terms than Bitcoin vehicles over ￰5￱ cast the $1.65 billion raise as a starting gun for a broader re-architecture of corporate finance on ￰6￱ plans to “be the guinea pig” that runs core operations on-chain—“payroll, paying vendors… equity issuance, raising money, dividends, stock splits… shareholder votes”—with the first milestone being tokenizing a portion of the company’s equity. Notably, he expects a “pretty good chunk” of PIPE participants to “take delivery on-chain,” and said Forward will ultimately lean into real-time transparency: “I am optimistic we will at some point publish all the company’s addresses… so dashboards can update in real time.” Much of the thesis rests on scale and the ability to convert that scale into accretive economics—both within Solana’s DeFi and across the emerging DAT ￰7￱ Asset Management will operate staking and DeFi deployments; Jump contributes infrastructure and performance—“all of the nodes that we’re running are running Firedancer”—and proprietary transaction-ordering ￰8￱ was explicit that Forward will not buy locked or liquid SOL from Multicoin, Jump, or Galaxy balance sheets, and that sponsor economics are split one-third each among the three firms, with Multicoin’s share accruing to its hedge fund LPs, not to him ￰9￱ the DAT market itself, Samani expects consolidation and cross-chain roll-ups, with Solana primed to dominate: “The market’s not going to sustain 20 Solana DATs… I can see a world in which it sustains like three or four.” He called mNAV arbitrage “a very big opportunity,” arguing that vehicles trading at premiums can accretively acquire those at discounts, while Solana’s liquidity, service-provider depth, and credit acceptance put it ahead of smaller ecosystems.

“I’m very skeptical that sub-scale mNAVs will sustain at all,” he said, singling out non-SOL, non-ETH DATs as most ￰10￱ DATs ￰11￱ Samani also contends that pending US spot ETFs for SOL—especially with staking enabled—would amplify the Solana DAT advantage rather than dilute it. “I am very optimistic” staking appears in SOL ETFs “soon… sometime by the end of the year,” he ￰12￱ his telling, interchangeable wrappers—spot on exchanges, ETFs for brokerage rails, and corporate-wrapper DATs—expand the investor base while leaving Solana’s intrinsic yield engine intact. Forward, for its part, “expects the vehicle will be staking the substantial majority” of its ￰13￱ Reading: Solana Faces Bold $460 Target As Galaxy Digital Drives Heavy Buying Underpinning the price angle is Samani’s view that Solana DATs manufacture persistent demand for SOL while routing cash flows back to equity holders.

Locked-token acquisitions at discounts, systematic staking, bank-line funded DeFi strategies, and bespoke liquidity deals with leading protocols together create what he describes as structural ￰14￱ contrast with Bitcoin is stark in his ￰15￱ native cash flows, BTC-based treasuries rely on external financing and price appreciation; Solana DATs, he argued, can fund themselves. “Bitcoin can’t compete” in this dimension because it lacks staking yield and composable on-chain markets to arbitrage credit at institutional ￰16￱ gap broadens, he maintained, if banks increasingly accept staked SOL as collateral and if ETF structures normalize ￰17￱ is already “talking with a bunch of counterparties” about routing through banks with access to the Fed window to secure the cheapest possible dollar financing against SOL collateral, though he cautioned that none of this is ￰18￱ now, the scoreboard is ￰19￱ raise closed “in about two weeks,” with Samani estimating a roughly 40/60 crypto-native to TradFi split among ￰20￱ personally invested $25 million; Multicoin contributed “$114–115 million.” Galaxy’s distribution pulled in “a lot” of PIPE orders; Jump’s technical edge targets incremental ￰21￱ plans to be an active consolidator of DATs “both SOL and non-SOL,” while building out a dedicated executive team to run the Solana treasury line alongside the company’s legacy ￰22￱ implication for price, Samani insisted, is straightforward: Solana’s yield engine plus institutional credit and ETF rails create sustained, programmatic demand for SOL.

“In retrospect it was inevitable,” he said of the consortium behind ￰23￱ that inevitability translates into Samani’s headline claim—Solana DATs “beating” Bitcoin vehicles and setting SOL up to surge—will depend on execution, market liquidity, and the pace at which banks, ETF issuers, and regulators bless staking-based structures. Notably, Forward Industries completed the massive purchase of 6,822,000 SOL tokens worth $1.58 billion at $232 average ￰24￱ company has only $67 million left to purchase additional ￰25￱ press time, SOL traded at $235. Featured image created with DALL. E, chart from ￰26￱