A number of publicly traded firms are putting cryptocurrency on their balance sheets.
Nasdaq-listed medical device company Sharps Technology’s stock boomed on Monday after the firm said it would pivot to a crypto treasury strategy and raise hundreds of millions of dollars to buy Solana.
Sharps Technology’s stock (STSS) was up by over 40% Monday as of the close of the trading day, going for $10.35 per share after hitting a high of $13.28 earlier in the day.
The firm announced Monday that it was raising $400 million via a private placement offering to buy SOL, the sixth-biggest digital coin by market cap. Sharps Technology declined to comment further to Decrypt.
“Global adoption of Solana’s ecosystem is accelerating as it continues to receive institutional support for its vision of a single global market for every tradable asset, making now the right time to establish a digital asset treasury strategy with SOL,” Alice Zhang, Sharps Technology’s newly appointed chief investment officer and board member, said in a statement.
“We will have a team with deep ties to the Solana ecosystem and proven founder-level experience in scaling institutional digital asset platforms,” she added, “which we believe will set the company up for success.”
The company is the latest publicly traded firm to pivot to buying and holding crypto. A number of firms have bought Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other altcoins to get better returns for shareholders.
Crypto firms Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital are in talks to raise a $1 billion treasury fund dedicated to buying and holding SOL, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter.
Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — was the first publicly traded company to start a Bitcoin-buying masterplan. It now holds 632,457 BTC worth $71 billion at today’s prices.
SOL is the native coin of the Solana blockchain, a crypto network that competes with Ethereum. Developers use the blockchain to build everything from crypto exchanges and meme coins to games with tokenized, user-owned assets. The asset has gained popularity in recent years due to its low cost and high speeds, with even the likes of Visa announcing it would use the network to speed up credit card payments.
SOL was recently trading for about $190 per coin, according to CoinGecko data, after dropping 6% over a 24-hour period. Solana hit a six-month high price above $212 on Sunday.
The coin’s all-time high — which it hit in January — was a little over $293.
