Over the past week, three separate acquisition approaches by Forward Industries, the largest publicly traded holder of Solana (SOL) by token count, were either flatly rejected or simply ignored.
The outcome represents a significant setback for a company already nursing paper losses exceeding $1 billion on its core Solana position, and raises broader questions about whether the Solana treasury company model is fundamentally broken.
Three proposals, zero acceptances
The rejections unfolded in quick succession. On June 9, Brera Holdings (NASDAQ: SLMT) turned down a non-binding, all-stock proposal that valued its shares at $7.19 each.
Days later, on June 12, Solana Company (NASDAQ: HSDT), formerly the medical device maker Helius Medical Technologies, voted at the board level to decline an offer that would have awarded its shareholders 0.386 newly issued Forward shares for each HSDT share held, implying a per-share value of $1.63. The rejection came without any substantive negotiations, a point Forward made public with apparent frustration.
“We are disappointed and surprised that the HSDT board has chosen to reject Forward’s offer without any discussion or communication,” the company said in a press release, signaling that it had expected at least an opening of dialogue.
The third target, SkyAI (NASDAQ: SKYA, formerly known as Sharps Technology, took a different approach: it simply said nothing. Forward’s proposal, which valued SkyAI at $1.55 per share, expired without a response on June 13.
The result is a complete shutout. Three proposals. Zero acceptances.
How Forward Industries got Here: A $1.65 billion bet on SOL
To understand why Forward is so eager to consolidate, you need to understand how it arrived at its current position, and just how much is on the line.
In September 2025, Forward Industries closed a $1.65 billion private investment in public equity (PIPE) deal backed by some of the biggest names in crypto: Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital. The company deployed roughly $1.58 billion of those proceeds to purchase approximately 6.82 million SOL tokens at an average cost of around $232 per token. With staking rewards added, its current holdings stand at approximately 7 million SOL.
The strategy closely mirrors the corporate Bitcoin treasury approach pioneered by Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), but applied to Solana. The company also positioned itself to benefit from staking yields, typically in the mid-single-digit percentage range annually, which Bitcoin treasury companies cannot replicate. Forward has had all of its SOL staked since launch.
What the strategy did not account for was a sustained decline in SOL’s price. The token, which was trading well above $200 when Forward made its purchases, has since fallen sharply. At current prices in the $73-$85 range, Forward’s 7 million SOL are worth approximately $525 million, a loss on paper of more than $1 billion from the reported acquisition cost.
That gap has created enormous pressure. Forward’s stock now trades at roughly 0.69x its modified net asset value (mNAV), a metric that compares a company’s market capitalization to the current value of its underlying crypto holdings. In short, the market values the company at a discount even to what its tokens are worth today.
The consolidation logic and its limits
Against that backdrop, Forward’s acquisition push has an internal logic. Kyle Samani, the company’s chairman and co-founder of Multicoin Capital, who recently stepped down as managing director there to focus on Forward, has publicly confirmed that acquisition discussions are underway.
The rationale is straightforward: when mNAV ratios are depressed across an entire sector, the players with the most resources and the lowest cost of capital can acquire smaller competitors at discounts, boosting their per-token holdings without paying market price for additional SOL.
The broader Solana digital asset treasury (DAT) sector currently comprises 20 publicly traded companies collectively holding more than 18.4 million SOL worth around $1.39 billion, according to CoinGecko. Forward alone controls more than 7 million of those tokens, more than all of its next several competitors combined.
In a sector where liquidity and institutional relevance matter, being the largest player by a wide margin gives Forward a real competitive advantage. Combining with smaller firms, the argument goes, would further extend that lead while also reducing overhead and increasing market visibility for all shareholders involved.
Beyond acquisitions, Forward has authorized share buybacks and is planning a proposed $4 billion at-the-market equity program to fund its consolidation strategy. The company is also set to join the Russell 2000 and 3000 indexes after June 29, 2026, a development that would bring automatic passive-fund buying of its stock.
Why the targets are saying no
The rejections are revealing. If consolidation is genuinely in the interest of smaller treasury firms’ shareholders, and the math would suggest there’s at least a case to be made, why are boards voting it down?
One likely answer is valuation. Each of the rejected offers was an all-stock deal, meaning target company shareholders would receive Forward shares rather than cash. For that to be attractive, Forward stock would need to be worth enough, and the deal premium sufficient, to justify giving up independence. With Forward itself trading at a discount to its underlying SOL holdings, the arithmetic is not obviously favorable to the acquired party.
Another factor is market timing. Smaller treasury companies trading at premiums to their net asset value, as some in the sector are, have less incentive to merge with a company trading at a discount. The divergence in mNAV ratios across the sector means there is no one-size-fits-all case for consolidation.
August Widmer, a partner at investment firm Echo Base, framed the situation bluntly. Institutional investors have cooled significantly on treasury companies over the past year, he explained, because these vehicles tend to be riskier and less capital-efficient than dedicated structured crypto products. That investor exodus has forced treasury companies to consider M&A as a survival mechanism rather than a growth strategy.
“Now, firms are forced to desperately try to consolidate in an effort to capture enough market share to keep themselves afloat,” Widmer said. He added that while consolidation may ultimately be the only viable path forward for many of these companies, the rejections signal that smaller operators have not yet accepted that reality: “Consolidation is the only viable option and few firms have earned their right to be independent. There’s still further to fall in this market before that reality is accepted.”
The market reacts curiously
An unusual footnote to the rejection story came from the market itself. On the same day Forward’s consolidation failures became widely known, a US-Iran peace deal announcement triggered a surge in risk assets globally.
SOL gained nearly 11% in 24 hours to trade around $75. Forward’s stock (FWDI) jumped more than 14% to $4.89. HSDT, the company that had just rejected Forward’s bid, gained nearly 12%. SkyAI (SKYA) surged 14%, and Brera Holdings (SLMT) rose more than 7%.
Every company in the Solana treasury complex moved in near-perfect unison, precisely the kind of synchronized behavior that, ironically, undermines Forward’s core pitch.
If all four tickers move together regardless of deal status, the incremental value of actually merging becomes harder to articulate. The companies are already correlated assets; their shareholders are, in effect, already exposed to the same underlying bet.
What comes next
Forward does not appear ready to abandon its consolidation thesis. The company’s public statements suggest it views the rejections as short-term setbacks rather than a fundamental rebuke of the strategy. With the Russell index inclusion approaching and its ATM equity program in the pipeline, management has more levers to pull.
But the math remains challenging. Forward purchased its SOL at an average of $232. With the token currently below $85, the unrealized loss is not a rounding error; it represents a 63% decline from cost basis on the company’s primary asset. No amount of M&A activity changes that equation until Solana’s price recovers.
For the smaller treasury firms that turned down Forward’s advances, the situation is similarly precarious. They now remain independent, but in a sector where investor appetite is thin, liquidity is limited, and the dominant competitor is publicly frustrated with them. Whether that independence proves to be a principled stand or a costly mistake will depend largely on where SOL trades over the next twelve months.
In the meantime, the Solana treasury company sector finds itself at a crossroads: too fragmented to attract meaningful institutional capital as standalone entities, but not yet willing to accept the terms that consolidation would require. Forward Industries tried to force the issue. For now, the market has pushed back.
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