Solana has a big buyer that keeps buying in the downturn. Forward Industries, listed on Nasdaq under the ticker FWDI, reported holdings of 8,727,694 SOL as of November 9 in a filing with the
Solana has a big buyer that keeps buying in the downturn. Forward Industries, listed on Nasdaq under the ticker FWDI, reported holdings of 8,727,694 SOL as of November 9 in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on November 10. At the end of September it held 8,501,298 SOL. The price is not helping the company: according to CoinGecko, one SOL cost $80.65 on Friday at midday, around €72.96. The daily high was $82.13 and the low $78.10.
What is documented: a single company now holds, by its own account, around 1.5 percent of circulating supply and is funding further purchases with borrowed money as well. Our assessment follows further down: the buyer supports demand, but cannot reverse the downtrend of the past seven weeks on its own.
Where the SOL price could head over a horizon of months is covered in our Solana price prediction, with scenarios up to 2030. This article stays with this week's news: what Forward's figures reveal about demand for SOL, where the company is vulnerable and which price levels matter now.
Until 2025, Forward Industries was a small maker of carrying cases and accessories. Since changing strategy, the company has positioned itself as a so-called digital asset treasury, or DAT. A DAT is a listed company whose main business is buying and holding a crypto asset and generating returns from it. The best-known model is Strategy with bitcoin; Forward applies the approach to Solana.
Chief investment officer Ryan Navi describes the goal confidently in the filing. Forward wants to become the “Berkshire Hathaway of Solana”, a holding company that grows its crypto position while investing in projects on the Solana blockchain. According to the industry outlet The Block, the next-largest listed rival, DeFi Development Corp., holds a little over 2.6 million SOL. Forward holds more than three times as much.
According to the filing, the increase comes from two sources: purchases on the market and rewards from native staking. Staking means delegating coins to a validator that confirms transactions, in return for which the network pays out new SOL. Forward cites an average cost of $75 per SOL for the newly added coins. In other words, the company bought during the weak phase, well below the price at which it values its holdings.
The key metric for context is the one Forward watches itself: SOL per share. It rose by 2.3 percent in 40 days, or around 21 percent annualised according to the company. For a shareholder, this figure matters more than absolute holdings, because new shares can dilute each investor's stake. For the SOL price, however, it is the absolute purchases that count, and they are modest: at today's price, 226,396 SOL equal just over $18 million over six weeks. SOL trading volume over the past 24 hours was around $3.46 billion, according to CoinGecko.
A big buyer that discloses the price at which it buys unintentionally creates a reference point. If the price is close to its most recent entry level, traders tend to expect further purchases. That is not guaranteed: Forward has made no commitment to buy at any particular price, and it has to pay for every order with existing cash or new capital.
The new loan hangs on the coins: Forward secures $50 million with its SOL holdings.
What is new is how Forward plans to keep growing. An unnamed, state-chartered US bank with deposit insurance is granting the company a $50 million credit line. The interest rate is SOFR plus 1.5 percentage points. SOFR is the benchmark rate for secured overnight lending in dollars. The term is two years, and SOL from the treasury serves as collateral. According to Forward, the bank may not re-lend the pledged coins; in industry jargon, there is no rehypothecation.
Forward says it will use the money to accelerate its “SOL++” strategy, meaning generating more SOL per share. A loan against a falling crypto asset is a double-edged tool. If SOL rises, holdings per share grow faster than with equity alone. If SOL falls sharply, the value of the collateral drops, and depending on the contract the bank can demand more collateral or repayment. The filing does not disclose the agreed loan-to-value limit.
In its filing, Forward valued its holdings at $86.61 per SOL. On Friday at midday, the price was almost 7 percent lower. Recalculating the published items at the current price gives the following picture:
Every dollar SOL falls therefore costs Forward around $8.7 million in net asset value. The debt itself is still well covered relative to the holdings: at Friday's price, the SOL holdings were worth about 3.75 times the liabilities. Arithmetically, net asset value would only be wiped out at a SOL price of around $18. That figure is a rough calculation from the published numbers and takes into account neither future drawdowns on the credit line nor interest or costs.
The mNAV metric compares a treasury company's market capitalisation with its net asset value. Forward reported an mNAV of 0.976, meaning the share cost slightly less than the coins minus debt were worth. As long as that remains the case, the company can hardly issue new shares without diluting existing shareholders. That is exactly why it is turning to the credit line. The market knows this pattern from other treasury companies: once the premium to net asset value disappears, the cheapest source of money for new purchases dries up.
Two days after the holdings report, the next announcement followed on November 12. According to its own statement, Forward is entering a partnership with Groma, a Boston company founded in 2020. Groma issues GromaCoin (GRO). Each token represents a share in the Groma Real Estate Trust, a US-regulated real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns rented residential buildings.
Forward expects to take an allocation of up to $30 million when GRO launches on Solana. Groma plans the launch on the Solana blockchain for the first quarter of 2027; the allocation has not yet been finalised. According to Groma, more than $95 million has already been tokenised, and almost $50 million has flowed in so far in 2026. GRO is currently available only to accredited investors in the US; a public offering of up to $75 million depends on SEC approval.
For the SOL price, this news is indirect for now. Tokenised real-world assets generate transactions and fees on the blockchain, but fees on Solana amount to a fraction of a cent. As we showed on Thursday in our analysis of $5.13 billion in tokenised funds, this segment is growing strongly on Solana without so far creating noticeable demand for SOL itself.
Homes as tokens: Groma wants to bring its real estate fund to Solana in the first quarter of 2027.
On Thursday at midday, SOL stood at $82.13. In the previous day's analysis, $89 was the threshold for a trend reversal and the 20-day average at $94 the next target. Neither level came within reach. Instead, support around $80 briefly gave way in the broad sell-off on Friday morning; the daily low was $78.10. Bitcoin fell below $70,000 at the same time, losing around 5 percent in 24 hours according to CoinGecko. SOL fell only 1.8 percent over the same period, holding up better than the market leader.
Over seven days, SOL is down 10.4 percent, and over 30 days 24.8 percent. From its close of around $122 on September 26, SOL has thus given up a good third. It is more than 70 percent below its record high of $293.31 from January 2025.
The following levels are based on CoinGecko daily closing prices over the past 120 days. They do not replace a forecast, but they show where buyers and sellers were last active.
The case for a recovery: a big buyer with a new credit line demonstrably buys into weakness, most recently at an average of $75. SOL held up better than bitcoin on Friday. Institutional access is also widening: according to Decrypt and crypto.news, US broker Charles Schwab opened SOL trading to retail clients on November 9. A close above $86.61 would bring the 100-day line just under $100 into view.
The case against: the overall market is under pressure, and at today's price Forward's purchases are only a fraction of daily trading volume. If the share keeps trading below net asset value, Forward remains dependent on credit, and a loan against SOL tends to make the company more cautious if prices keep falling. A daily close below $75 opens the way to the August low of $71.89.
Our assessment: Forward is a stabilising factor for Solana, but not a price driver. The evidence is in the filing itself. Buying 226,396 SOL in six weeks equals just over $18 million at Friday's price, while SOL worth around $3.46 billion changes hands in a single day. With an mNAV of 0.976, the share trades below the value of the coins, so easy financing through new shares is off the table. For a trend reversal, SOL needs broader demand, such as renewed inflows into US funds holding SOL or an easing in the overall market. What argues against our view: if SOL falls below $75 and Forward visibly buys with its credit line, a single buyer of this size can certainly form a floor in the short term. We do not derive a buy recommendation from this.
SOL is best bought from a provider licensed under the European MiCA regulation; the public register of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) shows whether a provider is licensed. Fees and spreads vary considerably, so our crypto exchange comparison is worth a look before your first purchase. If you buy Forward's shares through a broker, you do not own any SOL but a stake in a company with debt, costs and the risk of dilution.
Forward's figures show a buyer that is sticking with Solana, and a balance sheet that shows around $52 million less net asset value at Friday's price than on the reporting date. For SOL holders, three concrete steps follow:
(As of November 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)
