Wall Street and DAT’s New Darling: Can Solana Take the Baton from Ethereum?

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#DAT #Ethereum #Solana

What is DAT? In short, DAT (Digital Asset Treasury) means an enterprise or institution adds digital assets (such as BTC, ETH, SOL) to its balance sheet as part of its strategic reserves. Unlike ETFs — passive investment vehicles — DAT emphasizes active management, boosting returns via staking, financing, derivatives trading, and more.

This model was pioneered by Bitcoin. Since MicroStrategy announced in 2020 that it would hold BTC in its treasury, the logic of corporates buying crypto as reserves has gained market acceptance. With Bitcoin ETFs approved in 2024, institutional allocation demand has been fully unleashed.

However, the Bitcoin treasury playbook is relatively simple — buy and hold — leaving less room for advanced asset engineering. Ethereum’s DAT builds on that and layers in richer “yield generation.”

Ethereum DAT: From “Storage” to “Value-Add”

Ethereum’s advantages are clear — higher volatility and staking capability — making it the top DAT pick after BTC.

Data shows over 4.1 million ETH have been placed in various institutional treasuries, with a market value above $17.6 billion, accounting for 3.39% of ETH’s total supply. BitMine, SharpLink Gaming, and The Ether Machine together hold positions worth over $10 billion, effectively dominating the top end of institutional ETH treasuries.

Why has Ethereum’s DAT moved faster?

1）Volatility creates financing room

ETH’s historical volatility exceeds BTC’s, opening the door for arbitrage and derivatives strategies. ETH treasury companies often collateralize assets to issue convertible notes on better terms, lowering financing costs.

2）Staking generates steady cash flow

Unlike Bitcoin, post-Merge Ethereum (PoS) lets ETH holders earn staking yield. Institutional DAT operators aren’t just hoarding — they can lock in recurring on-chain cash flows, turning ETH into a bond-like asset.

3）Ecosystem depth

DeFi, NFTs, and RWA rely heavily on Ethereum, making ETH not just a reserve asset but also the fuel of a financial ecosystem. This network effect gives ETH DAT outsized strategic value.

In essence, ETH DAT has evolved from “simple reserves” to “financial engineering,” offering listed companies a new capital-markets playbook.

Solana DAT: The Rise of a New Force

1) From follower to breakout

Even as ETH DAT boomed, Solana began catching Wall Street’s eye. Latest figures show 17 entities have established SOL treasuries, totaling 11.739 million SOL — about $2.84 billion — or 2.04% of total supply.

This means Solana has moved from “edge chain” to the third major institutional allocation target, after BTC and ETH.

Forward Industries, Helius Medical Technologies (HSDT), and Upexi have all named Solana a strategic asset. Capital heavyweight Galaxy Digital has doubled down as well, adding $400 million of SOL for Forward Industries.

2) DAT 2.0: The appeal of staking yield

Another highlight of Solana DAT is attractive staking yields. So far, around 585,000 SOL — worth over $100 million — have been staked at an average yield of 6.86%.

Upexi raised holdings from 73,500 SOL to 1.8 million SOL and staked nearly all of it, expecting ~$26 million in annual cash flow. In other words, Solana DAT is shifting from pure “reserve” to active value-add, akin to an interest-bearing asset in TradFi.

3) Wall Street logic: Smaller market cap, bigger elasticity

Compared with BTC and ETH, SOL’s market cap is smaller (~$116 billion, roughly 1/20 of BTC). That means the same dollar inflow can move SOL’s price far more than BTC/ETH.

For example, Forward Industries’ $1.6 billion injection into SOL would be equivalent to ~$33 billion of buying pressure in BTC terms. Given supply-demand dynamics, SOL’s price elasticity is greater — appealing to institutions seeking higher upside.

Solana’s Distinct Appeal

1) High-performance network: TradFi-grade speed and cost

Solana uses a monolithic design — unlike Ethereum’s modular route (splitting execution and data layers via L2s). By integrating functions on a single L1, Solana delivers very high throughput — tens of thousands of TPS — and ultra-low fees (often <$0.01 per transaction).

For Wall Street, this is critical. Institutional settlement is highly sensitive to speed and cost. With recent upgrades, Solana cut transaction confirmation to ~150 ms, approaching Web2-grade UX. For the first time, a blockchain’s settlement layer starts to look compatible with financial back-office systems.

2) Broad use cases: Multiple tracks, parallel momentum

If Bitcoin is a reserve asset and Ethereum is financial Lego, Solana’s edge is multi-vertical applications. It has solid traction across payments, DeFi, NFTs, GameFi, SocialFi, and DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure). In stablecoins and tokenized assets, Solana is emerging as a mainstream settlement network.

USDC circulation on Solana is climbing fast; some cross-border payment firms already use Solana for clearing. In DePIN, Helium fully migrated to Solana — proof of its capacity for large-scale IoT workloads.

This “horizontal bloom” means institutions aren’t betting on a single narrative, but on a consumer-grade super-platform potential.

3) Early institutional adoption: Huge upside ahead

Currently, institutional SOL ownership is below 1%, far lower than ETH (~7%) and BTC (~16%). That doesn’t imply lack of recognition — rather, it shows massive runway.

With Solana ETPs advancing and more corporates adding SOL to DAT, institutional penetration could rise quickly. Unlike BTC and ETH — already deeply held — Solana is a low-penetration “white canvas.” Each incremental institutional buy can have an outsized impact on price and market cap.

Part of Wall Street’s interest is precisely this market-cap elasticity. At ~$116B, SOL is ~1/20 of BTC and 1/5 of ETH. The marginal price impact of equal-sized inflows is therefore much larger for SOL. In short, Solana enjoys a late-mover advantage with substantial incremental potential in the DAT lane.

Net-net: Financial-grade performance, multi-track demand, and low starting institutional penetration combine to make Solana one of the most commercially compelling blockchains in Wall Street’s eyes.

Conclusion

From Bitcoin to Ethereum, and now to Solana, Digital Asset Treasuries (DAT) are reshaping the institutional crypto map.

• BTC brings the certainty of a reserve asset.
• ETH showcases the value-add of a financial asset.
• SOL represents the high-growth potential of a next-gen L1.

As Forward Industries, Helius, Upexi and others keep adding, and a potential Solana ETF gathers momentum, Wall Street capital is flowing into Solana at unprecedented speed.

This is not just an investment trend — it’s a vote by global capital on how the crypto market structure is evolving. Whether Solana can truly cement its place as Wall Street’s new favorite will depend on its ability to balance hyper-growth with long-term resilience.