Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest Teams Up with SOL Strategies to Supercharge Solana Staking
ARK Invest makes its move on Solana—staking just got a Wall Street upgrade.
Bullish on blockchain's speed demon, Cathie Wood’s fund partners with SOL Strategies to squeeze yield from SOL holdings. Because why let your crypto sit idle when TradFi giants can help you chase APY?
Solana’s institutional moment? The network’s proof-of-stake model gets a credibility boost—though skeptics whisper this is just hedge funds doing what they do best: monetizing hype cycles.
One thing’s clear: When ARK talks, markets listen. Even if their crypto plays sometimes smell suspiciously like FOMO dressed up as ‘strategic allocation.’
The institutional staking shift
ARK’s pivot to SOL Strategies reflects a broader institutional trend: the search for staking partners that offer both technical specialization and regulatory insulation. Unlike retail investors who might stake through exchanges, asset managers like ARK require infrastructure that meets compliance standards while minimizing slashing risks, a balance SOL Strategies achieves through its BitGo custody integration and Canadian regulatory standing.
SOL Strategies said it currently manages five validators with over 3.59 million Solana tokens, worth about $647 million, delegated. 88% of these tokens comes from third-party clients, suggesting institutional trust in its model.
Solana’s staking boom by the numbers
Data from Solana Compass reveals 403 million SOL, worth approximately $73.5 billion is currently staked. This represents a 22% increase year-to-date, a growth that coincides with Solana’s rising institutional adoption, evidenced by products like 3iQ’s Solana Staking ETF, in which ARK previously invested.
Yet risks persist: validator slashing penalties and Solana’s historical network outages remain concerns. SOL Strategies’ Q2 2025 financials show a $3.5 million net loss despite staking revenue growth, highlighting the capital-intensive nature of the business, though ARK’s backing could signal a turnaround.
