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  • 🥇Pantera just made a $1.1B Call. Solana is The Chosen One

🥇Pantera just made a $1.1B Call. Solana is The Chosen One

PLUS: Institutions are stacking SOL, Gemini’s IPO hype fades, and Washington wants CBDCs off the table.

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Cryptopolitan News
September 17, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

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Pantera just went all in all Solana (quite literally).

Pantera’s CEO Dan Morehead revealed that Solana is now the fund’s biggest position, holding about $1.1 Billion worth of SOL.

This position says a lot about how the perception of Solana has changed over the years. The memecoin chain just got serious, and so did the capital flowing into it.

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Our biggest position is Solana. We used to be 100% Bitcoin. Then we had huge positions in Ethereum. Solana is now leading.

Dan Morehead

Pantera’s strategy is simple, they don’t expect thousands of successful projects, so the handful of projects they back have strong chances to succeed, and they mostly do. 

Quick Explainer: Who is Pantera Capital?

One of the first U.S. hedge funds dedicated to crypto, Pantera has backed early plays like Bitstamp, Circle, and 0x, and now manages billions across liquid tokens and venture bets. When a firm with Pantera’s track record rotates this heavily, the market tends to pay attention.


The timing of Pantera’s bet is not completely random. It comes at a time when ETF chatter around Solana was already heating up and we were seeing record inflows moving towards SOL. Institutions are starting to see Solana not just as a “fast chain,” but as a chain worth holding on their books. Case in point: Helius Medical Technologies announced a $500M Solana treasury reserve, backed by Pantera itself. Think MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin playbook, but with yield baked in.

But why would companies want a SOL treasury and not BTC? Yield.

It’s the same switch we saw from BTC to ETH treasuries, BTC has no yield so it generates no passive income, till it is sold at a higher market price than purchase, so the BTC treasury playbook is more about getting your average purchase price below the market price, which the likes of Metaplanet and MicroStrategy try to achieve.

But institutions saw that as a test of retail appetite and were quick to realise they could enjoy twofold benefit if they choose a yield bearing asset like ETH or SOL for the treasury pick, they generate ~7% yield while you wait, giving institutions both income and upside.

And the August numbers speak for themselves:

Put it all together, and the narrative around Solana has shifted. From the memecoin, retail favourite chain to Pantera portfolio & institutional grade asset.

⚖️ Regulation Watch

Lawmakers are slipping a CBDC ban into two key bills — the crypto-focused Digital Asset Market Clarity Act and the defense budget (NDAA), which is almost guaranteed to pass.

The ban blocks the Fed from developing, testing, or issuing a digital dollar — retroactively killing any pilot projects. Why proponents want it: Advocates argue that a CBDC would enable the government to spy on and control how people use money.

Supporters say a CBDC would let the government spy on spending. Critics argue it’s a retreat from the global digital currency race — as China and Europe push ahead. Meanwhile, the broader crypto bill also clarifies who regulates what — SEC vs. CFTC, trading rules, and custody.

Next up: The Senate. Will they keep the ban or water it down?

 đź‘€ Chart our analyst is watching

Gemini, the star IPO of this month, which was oversubscribed 20x and had 30% direct retail exposure, now looks a bit shaky.

The stock has plunged 24% from its peak of round 45$ to 28$, which is even below the fair value of 32$.

Why the sell off?

While Gemini checked all the boxes when it came to marketing the IPO, the balance sheet could not match the narrative, Gemini posted a $283M loss in H1 2025, which is bigger than its 2024 full-year loss and a slowing revenue growth makes it hard to justify its valuation. At a 26x P/S multiple, investors are paying way more than peers.

Quick Explainer: Fair value & P/S Ratio

Fair value is basically what analysts think a stock should be worth, based on factors like earnings, revenue, and market comparisons. Gemini’s fair value estimate is $32.52 which means trading below that would look cheap, above it looks expensive.

The price-to-sales (P/S) ratio tells you how much investors are paying for every dollar a company makes in revenue. A P/S of 26x means investors are paying $26 for each $1 Gemini is expected to generate. For context, the industry average is closer to 4x.

Medium article picks: By our HR

Headline picks: By our Data Analyst

Prove It Hi Tech GIF by Similarweb

🎭 Culture Corner

As Polymarket returns to the US, the crypto community was quick to spot an interesting detail in its filing: warrants.

It is all chatter now but recent partnerships with Chainlink and Stockwits got the community connecting the dots too fast. And of course Trump Jr’s involvement nowadays means Crypto.

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