Pantera makes billion-dollar bet on Solana, Bitcoin to win long-term

Pantera Capital is going long on Solana as the altcoin season heats up. Its founder, Dan Morehead, revealed the firm holds about $1.1 billion in SOL. This makes it the hedge fund’s single biggest position. That’s no small call for a hodler that once held only Bitcoin and later rotated heavily into Ethereum.

Solana turned out to be the biggest gainer among the top 10 cryptos over the last 30 days. SOL has outperformed Ethereum, its rival, with a surge of more than 22%. Ether, which stole the limelight from Bitcoin, lost its momentum as Wall Street players began exploring other altcoin options.

Pantera picks Solana

In an interview, Morehead described Solana as “the fastest, cheapest, most performing” blockchain out there right now. He suggested that it has been the best performer of the bunch, outpacing Bitcoin over the past four years

“Our biggest position is Solana,” he said. “We’ve had huge positions in Ethereum in the past. We used to be 100% Bitcoin. Something could come out tomorrow.” 

Solana has come a long way. The chain, which was on the brink after falling below the $10 mark in 2022, has come a long way to hit its all-time high of over $294 in 2025. SOL is trading at an average price of $235 at press time.

However, Morehead doesn’t see the industry splintering into thousands of winners and expects only a handful of blockchains to stick around long term. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana are at the top of that list. Ethereum, too, made a major comeback after dipping below the $1,500 levels in April 2025. ETH is trading at an average price of $4,509 at the press time.

His view on Bitcoin remains bold with the recent surge, expecting BTC to hit $750,000 within five years. In his words, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is still only scratching the surface, representing “a single-digit share of global wealth.”

Solana ETF hopes rise

The billion-dollar Solana bet echoes a playbook popularized by MicroStrategy’s (Strategy) Michael Saylor. Back in 2020, Saylor started buying Bitcoin for his company’s balance sheet and turned it into a proxy stock for the crypto. This move has already inspired others and attracted them to the industry.

The timing is interesting, too, as US regulators are inching closer to decisions on altcoin ETFs. Cryptopolitan reported that the DTCC quietly added products tied to Solana, XRP, and Hedera to its clearing roster last week. Meanwhile, this move is seen as a procedural step, not approval.

Still, Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas noted that most tickers that make it into the system eventually launch. The SEC, however, keeps kicking the can while delaying decisions on Canary’s XRP and Hedera filings and pushing Fidelity’s Solana ETF review into October.

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