Renowned investor Cathie Wood has teamed up with the UAE to invest $300 million in a Nasdaq-listed football enterprise, which will transform into a treasury company specifically hoarding Solana (SOL) tokens.

On September 18th, Brera Holdings, which holds stakes in football clubs from Italy to Mongolia, announced that after securing a $300 million private investment led by Abu Dhabi's Pulsar Group and Cathie Wood's ARK Invest, the company will begin accumulating Solana tokens.

Simultaneously, the company will be renamed Solmate.

The new company plans to pursue a dual listing in the UAE, leveraging "UAE connections to enhance SOL accumulation capabilities." Following the news, the Nasdaq-listed company's stock price surged by up to 592% to $52.95, and still closed with a gain of 225%.

This transaction reflects the continued expansion of the digital asset treasury concept. However, recent stock performance of such companies has shown increasing divergence, with some companies' share prices falling below the value of the cryptocurrencies they hold, indicating the market is reassessing the premium for this business model.

Star Investors and Heavyweight Executives Join

To power this transformation, Solmate has assembled a notable team of executives and directors.

Marco Santori, a legal pioneer in the crypto industry, will become the new company's CEO. In an interview, Santori stated that he believes Solmate's differentiating advantage lies in its proximity to capital, saying:

"Where is the capital of the world today? It's the UAE. That was the initial attraction for me."

Santori was previously a General Partner at blockchain investment group Pantera Capital and served as Chief Legal Officer at crypto exchange Kraken for five years. He is renowned in the industry for creating the "Simple Agreement for Future Tokens" (SAFT).

Even more notably, economist Arthur Laffer, famous for the "Laffer Curve" theory and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019, will join the company's board of directors.

Citing a person close to Brera, the report revealed that Wood quickly decided to invest in Solmate after Laffer confirmed his involvement. Wood has previously described Laffer as a "mentor."

Wood's entry further enhances Solmate's star power.

Solana "Treasury" Track Becoming Increasingly Crowded

Despite the heavyweight backing, Solmate is entering an already crowded field. Transforming listed companies into "treasury companies" for specific crypto tokens has become a trend, especially in the Solana ecosystem.

According to reports, Santori's former employer, Pantera Capital, just this week helped a medical device company raise $1.25 billion, which also plans to hoard SOL tokens.

Earlier, another crypto investment firm, Galaxy Digital, announced it co-led a $1.65 billion private placement for a Solana holding company named Forward Industries with two other investors. Santori himself revealed that he has recently seen about 80 financing proposals for treasury company projects.

To stand out from the competition, Solmate has secured a deep partnership with the Solana Foundation.

According to Santori, the Solana Foundation will sell a portion of its tokens to Solmate at a discount and receive two board seats. In return, Solmate will collaborate with the Foundation on projects in the UAE and share related revenue. Santori even predicted:

"I think Wall Street is going to build on Solana, not on Ethereum."

Following the "Coin Hoarding" Precedent, but Market Shows Fatigue

Solmate's business model essentially emulates the successful precedent set by MicroStrategy's transformation into a "Bitcoin treasury company."

By issuing stocks or bonds to accumulate cryptocurrency, these companies aim to drive their stock price increases to outperform the value of the crypto assets they hold themselves. Statistics show that over 100 companies have adopted this strategy.

However, this once market-favored model is facing a test.

Some critics view it as merely a "trick of marketing and financial engineering." In recent weeks, the stock prices of many well-known crypto treasury companies have experienced significant declines, with the market capitalization of some companies even falling below the value of their held crypto assets, indicating that investors are reassessing the premium for such stocks.

A stark example is the previously mentioned packaging company Eightco, which announced plans to purchase Worldcoin, associated with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Its stock price skyrocketed 3000% in a single day but has since given back much of those gains, settling at a 714% increase (from some prior point, context implies post-announcement gain calculation).

It is worth noting that the broker providing advisory services for both the Solmate and Eightco private placements is Cantor Fitzgerald, controlled by the family of US Commerce Secretary (likely referring to Dan Lufkin, co-founder, though current Secretary is Gina Raimondo; may refer to previous affiliations or family relation, fact check suggested on original text).