Inside Solmate’s $300M bet on Solana treasury and impact on SOL

Key Takeaways 

What happened? 

Sports group Brera pivoted to an SOL treasury firm with a $300 million bet, triggering a 225% stock rally. 

What’s next for Solana? 

The growing SOL treasury and upcoming ETF approval could start the altcoin’s ‘institutional moment.’

Solana[SOL] has scored another SOL treasury player. Solmate, a new firm rebranding from Nasdaq-listed Brera Holdings (Nasdaq: BREA), has announced a $300 million raise for an SOL treasury strategy. 

The firm will focus on the UAE, with the CEO (former Kraken CLO), Marco Sanori, adding that it will be ‘different’ from other players as it will build crypto infrastructure (validator nodes) in the Middle East. 

It will also accumulate SOL and stake most of it, while running its sports-club venture. Additionally, its shares will be tradable in the U.S. and the UAE. 

The move adds a growing list of SOL treasury firms across North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Still, SOL institutional adoption lags behind Bitcoin [BTC] and Ethereum [ETH]

Will SOL close the gap with ETH, BTC?

Worth pointing out that SOL treasury recently got two players $500 million for Helius and  $1.65 billion for Forward Industries, all backed by Pantera Capital. 

But according to the venture capital firm, institutional investors are still under-allocated to SOL (0.9%) compared to ETH (7%) and BTC (16%).  

Pantera Capital added that the upcoming ETF approval could usher in a new institutional moment for Solana. 

“With a Solana ETF approval expected as early as Q4 2025, we believe Solana is next in line for its ‘institutional moment’.”

Source: Pantera Capital

In fact, most analysts believe that ETH and BTC printed new highs on the price charts because of institutional demand and great storylines.

Currently, institutions own $364 billion worth of BTC and $30B of ETH. SOL could be next if firms’ holdings grow to multi-billion dollar from current $925 million. 

Solmate is also backed by the Solana Foundation and a UAE investment firm.

For Mert Mumtaz, Founder of Solana-based development platform, Helius Labs, the update was ‘big’ especially for the UAE, which is called ‘crypto forward.’

Source: X

Brera Holdings’ share (BREA) rallied 225% after the news.

Meanwhile, SOL slipped about 4% and traded at $245 after retreating from $253 as some traders locked in profit from the recent rally driven by the Fed rate cut.