Key Highlights
- Forward Industries has announced its partnership with Sanctum to issue a new liquid staking token, ‘fwdSOL’
- The biggest Solana Treasury will convert 25% of its huge 6.9 million SOL tokens into fwdSOL
- The new liquid staking token will allow the company to earn native Solana staking rewards and use the token as collateral to borrow assets
On December 2, Forward Industries unveiled its partnership with Sanctum to launch its new liquid staking token ‘fwdSOL.’
This brand new liquid staking token will allow the company to generate staking yield on SOL while unlocking additional sources of return through DeFi and institutional borrowing strategies.
Forward Industries is the biggest Solana Treasury in the world at present, which now holds nearly 6.9 million SOL tokens, worth around $1.59 billion.
Forward Industries Plans to Roll Out fwdSOL
As a part of this partnership with Sanctum, Forward Industries will delegate a portion of its Solana holdings to create a new liquid asset. This process will mint approximately 1,725,100 fwdSOL tokens, which is exactly similar to 25% of the company’s total SOL treasury.
The major feature of these tokens is in their conversion of static, staked SOL into fwdSOL tokens. This allows the company to maintain its base position and continue earning native staking yield while deploying the LST across a range of on-chain opportunities to enhance performance.
The newly created fwdSOL tokens can then be deployed across Solana’s decentralised finance ecosystem to get higher returns.
For example, this main use case involves using the liquid staking token as collateral to secure loans of other digital assets. These borrowed funds can then be used in selected DeFi protocols or other revenue-generating strategies with the Company’s institutional partners.
“This initiative demonstrates our commitment to unlocking the full potential of our SOL holdings,” Kyle Samani, Chairman of Forward Industries, said. “Liquid staking with Sanctum gives us more flexibility and efficiency in deploying capital, going beyond passive staking to capture incremental sources of yield responsibly, while maintaining liquidity. The launch of fwdSOL marks another milestone in our mission to build a robust, optimized, and transparent treasury strategy for the digital asset economy.”
“Forward Industries’ adoption of liquid staking as a core component of its strategy validates our view that LSTs are the essential first step for institutions aiming to earn yield on their SOL,” FP Lee, Co-Founder & CEO of Sanctum, stated in the press release. “Forward Industries’ active, institutional approach to treasury management showcases exactly how liquid staking can power more sophisticated on-chain strategies, keeping SOL liquid for free deployment across DeFi. This partnership reflects a shared commitment to securing the Solana network while keeping SOL active throughout the ecosystem.”
Apart from this, this partnership also allows the company to acquire Sanctum’s native governance token, CLOUD, as part of its treasury assets.
SEC’s Statement on Liquid Staking Token Encourages New Issuers
In August 2025, staff at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) provided important guidance. They mentioned that certain liquid staking tokens may not be classified as securities if they function simply as receipts for staked assets and rewards managed by software rather than the issuers.
The official document stated, “Section 2(a)(1) of the Securities Act and Section 3(a)(10) of the Exchange Act each defines the term “security” by providing a list of various financial instruments, including “stock,” “note,” and “bond.” As noted in the Protocol Staking Statement, a Covered Crypto Asset does not constitute any of the financial instruments that are specifically enumerated in the definition of “security.”
“Accordingly, we conduct our analysis of certain transactions involving Covered Crypto Assets in the context of Liquid Staking under the “investment contract” test outlined in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co. The “Howey test” is used to analyze arrangements or instruments not listed in those statutory sections based on their “economic realities,” as further explained in the document.
This clarification from the SEC has opened the door for more institutional products.
