Pantera Capital’s ‘biggest position’ is $1.1b Solana

Pantera Capital’s CEO says the company has invested most of its funds into Solana compared to all the other crypto assets in its balance sheet. The firm now holds as much as $1.1 billion worth of SOL. What makes Solana so special?

In an interview with CNBC, Pantera Capital founder Dan Morehead calls Solana the “fastest, cheapest, most performing” out of all the other blockchains, even when compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum. Morehead considers Solana the company’s biggest bet, thus he revealed that the firm has invested as much as $1.1 billion of its funds into the token.

Although he still considers other blockchains to be just as important, as it depend on the use cases of each protocol, Morehead believes that the company will always be shifting to the next big thing. Which right now, he considers to be Solana (SOL).

“Our biggest position is Solana. We’ve had huge positions in Ethereum in the past. We used to be 100% Bitcoin. Something could come out tomorrow,” said Morehead in his interview on CNBC.

Although the exact number of crypto assets held by Pantera Capital is not publicly disclosed, Morehead explained that the firm used to be a purely Bitcoin (BTC)-centered firm, before it shifted to Ethereum (ETH). However, it has since pivoted towards Solana in recent months, with an investment of $1.1 billion in its balance sheet allocated to SOL.

Reports from circulating articles stated that Pantera Capital has allocated as much as $5 billion of its corporate funds into crypto assets.

If Morehead’s claim is true, this makes Pantera Capital the largest corporate holder of SOL. Based on current market prices, the company may be sitting on a trove of more than 4.6 million SOL. According to data from CoinGecko, the largest entity to hold SOL on record is Defi Development Corp with a total of 2 million SOL.

Why is Pantera Capital betting big on Solana?

When asked about what makes Solana so special, Morehead highlighted its performance as a blockchain and its growth over the past few years. He believes that the next shift for Pantera Capital will depend on whether there will be a protocol that can outperform Solana.

“Well Solana could do, I think, 9 billion transactions a day which is more than all capital markets combined. So it’s obviously going to be the next thing after Solana,” he said.

According to the Solana website, the platform is designed to process 3,275 transactions per second. It is most well known as the underlying token base for meme coins and NFTs in the crypto community.

According to DeFi Llama, Solana holds a total value locked of $12.75 billion in DeFi, with a 24-hour DEX volume that stands at $5.86 billion. Solana DEX’s occupy some of the top ranks among other decentralized projects, such as Raydium, Jupiter and Jito.

At press time, SOL is trading at the $235 range as it continues to climb towards $236. The token has been slipping by 2.78% in the past 24 hours. However, in the past week it has been on a rally, showcasing a rise of 9.6%.