Forward Industries (FWDI), listed on Nasdaq, says its biggest advantage in the current digital-asset treasury downturn is simple: no corporate debt and no leverage on the balance sheet. Chief investment officer Ryan Navi told CoinDesk that this gives the company room to stay active while peers are being pushed into defense and, in some cases, asset sales.
That claim comes at a difficult moment for the sector. Companies that built balance sheets around crypto holdings have been hit by falling token prices, lower asset values and rising leverage pressure. In that setting, some firms have had to sell crypto to service debt and protect liquidity, putting fresh scrutiny on how durable the treasury-company model is in an extended market drawdown.
7 Million SOL Position Has Swung Deeply Underwater
Forward Industries has not escaped the damage. The company acquired roughly 7 million SOL at an average price of about $232. With SOL trading a little above $85, that stack is worth around $600 million, leaving an unrealized loss of roughly $1 billion. FWDI shares have also fallen sharply, sliding from nearly $40 at the peak of last year’s digital-asset treasury frenzy to just above $5.
$1.65 Billion Raise Reshaped the Company in 2025
The company’s strategic pivot took shape in 2025, when it raised about $1.65 billion through a private investment in public equity led by Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto and Multicoin Capital. That financing turned Forward into the largest Solana-focused treasury company in public markets, with holdings larger than those of its next three competitors combined.
The model is direct: accumulate SOL, stake it for onchain yield and use a lower cost of capital to improve value per share over time. Navi said crypto equities remain deeply dislocated, which can create room for disciplined capital allocation. If sentiment recovers and the stock trades above net asset value, the company can issue equity to acquire more crypto. In weaker conditions, he argued, lower prices and compressed expectations can still support accretive deployment.
Why the Company Is Centered on Solana
Navi framed the Solana bet as both a positioning call and a fundamentals call. In his view, Ethereum remains the leading smart-contract platform by market capitalization and decentralization, but it has become slower and more expensive, while layer-2 expansion has fragmented liquidity and diluted value at the base layer.
Forward is also trying to make the treasury more productive than a passive token reserve. The company stakes its SOL at about 6% to 7%, though Navi said that yield should decline over time as Solana issuance falls and supply becomes more disinflationary. Forward has also partnered with Sanctum to launch the liquid staking token fwdSOL, allowing the position to keep earning staking rewards while also being used as collateral in DeFi. On platforms such as Kamino, Navi said, the company can borrow against that collateral at a cost below the staking yield, giving it a capital-efficiency profile that many peers cannot match.