SOL Strategies Inc., a Canadian company dedicated to investing in and providing infrastructure for the Solana blockchain ecosystem, released its March 2025 operational update.
Leah Wald, CEO, stated:
“March represented a significant month for SOL Strategies, marked by our strategic acquisition of Laine’s validator network and Stakewiz.com, significantly expanding our validator footprint. This acquisition, which brings Michael Hubbard to our executive team as Chief Strategy Officer, combined with our continued operational excellence across all validators, reinforces our position as a leading institutional staking platform within the Solana ecosystem.”
Validator Performance Metrics
Network Position & Growth:
- Total SOL staked across all validators: 3,391,092 SOL, representing approximately CAD $552 million (USD $396 million)
- Total validators operated: 4 (including one validator added through the Laine Acquisition, as defined below).
A validator is a specialized server node on the Solana blockchain “that processes transactions, verifies blocks, and maintains network consensus.”
Validators aim to enhance the network’s “security, performance, and decentralization.”
They earn revenue through “commission fees on staking rewards generated by delegators who stake their SOL tokens to the validator.”
Operating validators is a core blockchain infrastructure activity “that requires both technical expertise and capital investment.”
Technical Performance and Developments:
- Uptime: 99.955% across all validators
- Average APY Delivered to Delegators: 7.41%, outperforming the network average of 7.32%
Firedancer Implementation: Currently being tested on two validators.
Firedancer is a validator client designed to “improve Solana’s throughput, efficiency, and network resilience.”
Their active testing positions SOL Strategies at the “forefront of infrastructure innovation while reinforcing their commitment to supporting scalable, institutional-grade performance.”
- Restaking Integration: SOL Strategies is proud to be at the forefront of restaking innovation on Solana through active participation in Jito’s TipRouter NCN, a notable advancement in MEV distribution.
- Market Note: While validator performance and yield remained strong, SOL’s market price declined approximately 12.5% over the month of March.
As a result, CAD-denominated returns for delegators were “impacted by underlying token price volatility, despite steady protocol-level rewards.”
Corporate Development
- Laine Validator Acquisition: On March 17, 2025, SOL Strategies completed the acquisition of three Solana validators – including Laine’s validator and Stakewiz.com – for CAD $35 million. Upon closing, this transaction increased the amount of SOL staked at the Company’s validators to 3,351,617 SOL, representing a 102% increase from February.
- Leadership: Michael Hubbard, founder of Laine, joined SOL Strategies as Chief Strategy Officer to lead validator infrastructure expansion and institutional partnerships. His appointment brings additional technical depth to our validator operations team.
Solana Purchases
During March, the company acquired “24,000 SOL at an average cost of approximately CAD $199 per token.”
On March 31, 2025, SOL Strategies held “267,151 SOL, of which 265,295 SOL were staked to the Company’s validators.”
As noted in the update, the broader Solana ecosystem continued “to build momentum.”
Visa and Worldpay expanded their use of Solana for stablecoin settlement infrastructure, “reinforcing institutional interest in Solana’s high-speed, low-cost network.”
Market Context
Solana (SOL) experienced notable volatility in March, “beginning the month around $144, with a monthly low of around $110, reaching a high of approximately $178, and closing just under $126,” according to CoinGecko data.
From its monthly low to peak, SOL gained “approximately 61.8%, while the decline from its high to month-end marked a pullback of around 29.2%.”
Overall, SOL ended March down roughly “12.5% from its opening price.”
These intra-month swings reflect a “combination of renewed ecosystem interest-driven by developments in payments, mobile, DeFi, and governance, and broader market volatility.”