Billionaire investor Kenneth Griffin is the founder and CEO of Citadel Advisors, which is one of the most successful hedge funds in the world. Griffin is recognised for his open-mindedness to diverse asset classes and quantitative investing approach. He has a personal net worth of $50.1 billion (£37.6 billion), according to Forbes.
Under Griffin's leadership, Citadel has generated over $74 billion (£55.4 billion) in net gains since its inception in 1990.
The hedge fund has finally placed a trade in a cryptocurrency treasury company, joining major corporates who have been growing their exposure to digital assets this year.
According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Citadel purchased 800,000 shares of the DeFi Development (Nasdaq:DFDV) stock at an average buying price of $15.76 (£11.84) per share for a total investment of $12.6 million (£9.4 million).
DeFi Development accumulates Solana (SOL) cryptocurrency, with holdings of nearly 2.2 million SOL tokens. The stock has surged over 2,198% in the past one year.
While SOL token prices have gained modestly in the past one year compared with the meteoric gains of Bitcoin (BTC), brokerages like Cantor Fitzgerald believe the SOL token is well-positioned as the 'infrastructure layer of the future,' citing its high-transaction throughput and low transaction costs.
DeFi Development has been steadily collaborating and acquiring validators and has even developed its own liquid-staking token.
The biggest differentiator between SOL and BTC treasury companies is the ability for Solana owners to stake their SOL holdings. Hence, SOL treasury businesses can organically grow SOL per share without having to access capital markets or diluting shareholder stakes. They can further accelerate growth by acquiring validators.
Staking operations enable SOL treasury companies to offer investors access to the benefits of staking through a publicly traded equity. Although DeFi Development does not distribute staking rewards to its shareholders, it will indirectly benefit because SOL's staking rewards increase the company's Solana balance without the need to raise capital.
Led by a crypto-native management team, DeFi Development has deep access to US capital markets and is investing in partnerships to enhance its brand and infrastructure, further embedding itself within the Solana ecosystem and community.
In June, Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage of DeFi Development with an 'Overweight' rating with a 12-month stock price target of $45 (£33.80) per share.
In Q2, DeFi Development reported earnings per share of $0.84 (£0.63) on revenue of $1.97 million (£1.4 million). The company's Solana per share metric reached 0.0619 as of 12th August, implying a 47% increase from 30th June.
'DeFi Dev Corp. is more than a vehicle to accumulate SOL - it's becoming the connective tissue between DeFi and TradFi,' CEO Joseph Onorati had stated. 'We are the first public equity vehicle to integrate deeply with the onchain economy, compound validator yield, and bring institutional capital directly into Solana.'
The company will announce its Q3 financial results and business outlook on Wednesday, 12th November
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