Main highlights
- Forward Industries has announced a partnership with Sanctum to issue a new liquid staking token, fwdSOL.
- The largest, Solana Treasury, will convert 25% of its massive 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 2nd, Forward Industries announced a partnership with Sanctum to launch a new liquid staking token, fwdSOL.
This brand new liquid staking token allows the company to: Generate staking yield with SOL while securing additional revenue streams through DeFi and institutional borrowing strategies.
🚨New: @FWDind, the largest Solana finance company with over $6.9M (approximately $1.5B), launches $fwdSOL. Liquid staking token on @solana created in partnership with @sanctumso. Forward Industries will convert 25% of its SOL holdings (approximately SOL 1.725 million) to fwdSOL. pic.twitter.com/nwgzwd39Md
— SolanaFloor (@SolanaFloor) December 2, 2025
Forward Industries currently has the largest Solana Treasury in the world, holding approximately 6.9 million SOL tokens worth approximately $1.59 billion.
Forward Industries plans to deploy fwdSOL
As part of the partnership with Sanctum, Forward Industries will delegate a portion of its Solana holdings and create a new liquid asset. This process will mint approximately 1,725,100 fwdSOL tokens. This represents 25% of the company's total SOL financials.
The main feature of these tokens is to convert static and staked SOL into fwdSOL tokens. This allows the company to maintain its fundamental position and continue to earn native staking yields while deploying LST on various on-chain opportunities to improve performance.
The newly minted fwdSOL tokens can be deployed across Solana's decentralized finance ecosystem to earn higher returns.
For example, key use cases for this include using liquid staking tokens as collateral to secure loans for other digital assets. These borrowed funds can be used in selected DeFi protocols or other income generation strategies with our institutional partners.
“This initiative demonstrates our commitment to maximizing the potential of our SOL portfolio,” said Kyle Samani, chairman of Forward Industries. “Liquid staking with Sanctum increases flexibility and efficiency in deploying capital, going beyond passive staking to responsibly capture incremental revenue streams while maintaining liquidity. The launch of fwdSOL marks another milestone in our mission to build robust, optimized and transparent financial strategies for the digital asset economy.”
“Forward Industries' adoption of liquid staking as a core element of its strategy confirms our view that LST is an essential first step for financial institutions seeking to capture yield on SOL,” said FP Lee, co-founder and CEO of Sanctum, in a press release. “Forward Industries' proactive, institutional approach to financial management shows exactly how liquidity staking can power more sophisticated on-chain strategies and keep SOL's liquidity freely deployable across DeFi. This partnership reflects our shared commitment to securing the Solana network while keeping SOL active across the ecosystem.”
Separately, the partnership also allows the company to acquire Sanctum’s native governance token, CLOUD, as part of its financial assets.
SEC statement on liquid staking tokens encourages new issuers
In August 2025, the staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) provided important guidance. They stated that certain liquidity staking tokens may not be classified as securities if they simply serve as receipts for staked assets or rewards that are managed by software rather than the issuer.
The official document read:Section 2(a)(1) of the Securities Act and Section 3(a)(10) of the Exchange Act each define the term “security” by providing a list of various financial instruments, including “stocks,” “notes,” and “bonds.” As stated in the Protocol Staking Statement, Covered Cryptoassets do not constitute financial instruments specifically enumerated in the definition of “Security”.
“Accordingly, we conduct an analysis of certain transactions involving covered cryptoassets in the context of liquid staking based on the “investment contract” test outlined in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co. The “Howey test” is used to analyze arrangements and instruments that are not listed in their statutory sections on the basis of “economic reality”, as further explained in the document.
This clarification from the SEC opens the door to more institutional products.
