Solana treasury Sharps inks staking partnership with Bonk

Solana-focused digital asset treasury Sharps Technology said Tuesday it has partnered with the Dogecoin-inspired Bonk memecoin. The DAT will stake a portion of its SOL to BonkSOL, a liquid staking token.

"Bonk has become one of the cultural engines of Solana and has consistently driven innovation across the ecosystem," Sharps Strategic Advisor James Zhang said in a statement. "Partnering with Bonk provides us with new avenues to potentially generate increased returns for our shareholders."

Sharps, a small-cap medical device company listed on the Nasdaq with the ticker STSS, said last month it planned to raise over $400 million in order to accumulate Solana, the sixth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, according to The Block Data Dashboard. Cantor Fitzgerald led the private investment in public equity (PIPE) transaction for Sharps with ParaFi Capital and Pantera Capital also participating, the treasury firm said.

The company said it holds over 2 million SOL, which would make it one of the largest Solana-based DATs. DeFi Development Corp. and Upexi each also hold about 2 million SOL. On Tuesday, Forward Industries said it purchased 6.8 million Solana for nearly $1.6 billion. Forward said all SOL bought to date has been staked.

Sharps "intends to stake a portion of its SOL to BonkSOL, Bonk's liquid staking token (LST) product," the team said in its statement. "By deploying capital into BonkSOL, [Sharps] seeks to earn staking yields, while also deepening liquidity in the Bonk and Solana ecosystem."

The firm is not the first to diversify its SOL balance sheet holdings using a Solana-based memecoin. In June, for instance, DeFi Development partnered with Dogwifhat, the fifth-largest "dog-themed" token by market cap, to spin up a validator and agreed to split its WIF staking rewards with the community. 

Bonk said that since launching it has attracted nearly 200,000 SOL in staking. BonkSOL enables users to stake their SOL and receive BonkSOL tokens in return, earning a type of passive income. LetsBonk, which briefly overtook Pump.fun as the most active memecoin launchpad, is part of the Bonk ecosystem.

BONK, with a market cap of $1.8 billion, is about 60% away from its all-time high of $0.000058, currently trading hands around $0.000023, according to The Block's price page.