Meet the man who wants to be the Michael Saylor of solana

While many companies are emulating Michael Saylor’s bitcoin accumulation strategy, newcomers are focusing on altcoins for their treasuries. DeFi Development Corp. (rebranded from Janover in April) is one, and aims to be the Strategy of solana. So far it’s succeeding, leading solana treasury public companies, with 621,313 SOL, valued at over $100 million. 

Sherwood talked to DeFi Development Corp. CEO and Chairman Joseph Onorati, who said the company is positioning itself to be the “gateway” to solana’s ecosystem, “just like Strategy is to bitcoin,” and explained why he believes the asset’s volatility is “an opportunity rather than a flaw.” 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Sherwood News: Why do you believe solana makes for a good corporate treasury asset, and why did you pick solana over other altcoins, like ethereum? Finally, did you consider any Layer 2s?

Joseph Onorati: Bitcoin will always be the best store of value, which makes it a fantastic treasury asset. But solana will also be a great treasury asset. It’s fast, scalable, deeply usable, and supports real economic activity today, including payments, DeFi, NFTs, games, and physical infrastructure. It also offers yield through staking, which makes it more dynamic than bitcoin.

We evaluated a number of assets: ETH, L2s, and others. Solana stood out as the chain with the most real-world throughput and the strongest long-term potential. Being the next evolution of Strategy means we’re positioning ourselves as the gateway to this ecosystem — just like Strategy is to bitcoin.

Sherwood: Can you explain the company name change from Janover to DeFi Dev Corp?

Onorati: This was ultimately about clarity and conviction. The company was primarily known for its commercial real estate tech business, which will still continue operating, but our treasury strategy is now the focal point. “DeFi Dev Corp” signals this shift into a crypto-first treasury strategy. It’s bold, it’s clean, and it tells the world who we are and what we’re about.

Sherwood: You were first to choose solana for a corporate treasury, but others have now followed. Is that positive or negative in your view? 

Onorati: We were the first company to choose SOL and only SOL for its treasury. Just like Saylor gave investors access to BTC, we want to do the same for solana. Every major crypto cycle sees a few assets break out and gain structural adoption, and solana is already well on its way. We were just the first public company to codify that view with capital.

Now, there’s a tsunami of treasury strategy companies coming to market. These businesses will exist for a wide variety of crypto assets. There will probably be more than one of them for all the top assets. This is great for the industry because it drives more interest and accessibility to these assets. From the perspective of DFDV investors, more companies adding SOL to their treasury should be viewed positively, because more buyers push the value of SOL up, which drives up the value of DFDV’s treasury as well.

Sherwood: Can you explain the staking element of your strategy?

Onorati: We don’t want to just buy crypto and sit on it. We want to have an underlying business that has synergies with our treasury accumulation strategy — in this case, we want to earn native yield. That yield enhances SOL-per-share over time and gives us real cash flow without selling tokens. It also strengthens solana itself by decentralizing and securing the network.

Sherwood: Tell us more about your view that solana’s volatility is an “opportunity rather than a flaw.”

Onorati: There’s this dynamic where volatility comes off as scary for a certain subset of investors, but for a large portion of them, they actively seek it out because there’s so much you can do with volatile assets. So, in our model, volatility is the fuel for the engine we’re building. It lets us offer a wide range of financial instruments to investors depending on their preferences. Most importantly, it enables us to raise capital above net asset value, buy more SOL, and grow SOL per share. 

If you zoom out, the fundamentals of solana — the throughput, the ecosystem, the dev velocity — they’re all growing fast. That’s why we say it’s inevitable.

Sherwood: How would you describe the state of the crypto market since President Trump took office? And what would you like to see in terms of regulation?

Onorati: Better than it was. The death of Choke Point 2.0 has created space for a far friendlier regulatory tone in the US, especially with Congress becoming the most crypto-friendly it’s ever been. ETFs, stablecoin legislation, and even the SEC’s posture are all evolving. Markets are forward-looking, and crypto’s moment is accelerating.

We believe a regulation-free environment would ultimately deliver better outcomes for investors by putting them in the driver’s seat to demand transparency from companies. True free markets — not crony capitalism — would create the greatest benefits for the greatest number of people.

Sherwood: Can you explain what the partnerships with Kraken and BitGo will entail?

Onorati: Both partnerships are additive to our treasury model and underscore the deep ties our team has with major crypto players.

Kraken is one of the largest SOL holders globally. Through our partnership, they’re delegating a portion of that stake to our validators. That means recurring revenue for us and deeper technical alignment with the network. It also reinforces our credibility: one of the most respected names in crypto chose us to help secure the chain.

BitGo gives us access to locked SOL — discounted tokens from institutional sellers that are subject to vesting schedules. These are sellers with long-term lockups, and through BitGo’s OTC desk, we’re able to acquire these tokens at meaningful discounts. It’s a capital-efficient way to accumulate, and we’re the only public company doing it at this scale.

Together, these partnerships help us do two things: grow SOL per share and generate validator yield, both critical to long-term compounding.