DeFi Development Corporation, formerly known as Janover, is ramping up its Solana treasury strategy following a buyout led by Kraken executives.

According to an April 22 announcement, the company added 88,164 Solana (SOL) to its treasury, worth $11.5 million and bringing its Solana stake to $34.4 million.

On April 7, DeFi Development Corporation was acquired by a group of former Kraken executives. As part of the deal, the company announced a shift toward crypto, including a rebrand and a Solana-based reserve treasury. Before the transition, Janover operated in the real estate financing space, linking lenders with commercial property buyers.

Since the takeover, the company has made multiple purchases of SOL, including a buy of $10.5 million on April 16. With the latest purchase, DeFi Development Corporation’s total holdings stand at 251,842. The company plans to stake the tokens to generate additional yield.

As of this writing, shares of DeFi Development Corporation (JNVR) are up 12.83% on the news, according to Google Finance.

DeFi Development Corporation’s intraday performance. Source: Google Finance

Staking is the process of locking up cryptocurrency to help secure a blockchain network and earn rewards in return. Solana briefly surpassed Ethereum in total staked value on April 21, with over $53.9 billion worth of SOL staked by more than 500,000 unique wallet holders, yielding an 8.31% annualized return.

Crypto treasury strategies gaining traction

Since Michael Saylor’s Strategy began adding Bitcoin (BTC) to its balance sheet in August 2020, more companies have followed suit with crypto treasuries, often seeing a boost in their stock prices as a result.

Japanese company Metaplanet announced its Bitcoin treasury in 2024 and recorded a 4800% rise in its share price as of Feb. 10, though it has fallen since then. Semler Scientific, a healthcare technology company, saw a 30% stock price rise after it announced its BTC reserve treasury.

Other companies are expanding their digital assets approach to other cryptocurrencies, such as SOL. Upexi, a Nasdaq-listed supply chain firm, recently announced the creation of a SOL treasury to diversify its assets.

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Bitcoin (BTC) price surged over the Easter weekend, jumping 9% and crossing the $91,000 threshold on April 22. This strong performance diverged sharply from the stock market’s lukewarm rebound and mirrored gold’s bullish behavior, which briefly touched a new all-time high of $3,500. 

While the BTC rally and its growing decoupling from equities are noteworthy, it’s the derivatives market that offers an even more bullish signal.

According to data from CoinGlass, Bitcoin open interest (OI) soared by 17%, reaching a 2-month high at $68.3. OI measures the total capital invested in BTC derivatives, and such an uptick shows a growing bullish sentiment among traders. 

The market is currently in contango — a situation where futures prices (notably CME Bitcoin futures) are higher than the spot price. This typically occurs because investors anticipate rising prices and take advantage of leverage tools offered by exchanges, allowing them to gain greater exposure through futures than they could with direct spot purchases.

This raises two questions: Who is buying, and why?

Institutional interest reawakens

A key metric for understanding investor composition is the Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index. It measures the percentage price difference between Bitcoin on Coinbase Pro (BTC/USD) and Binance (BTC/USDT). Since Coinbase Pro caters predominantly to US-based institutional investors, while Binance has a broader global retail audience, this premium can indicate where the buying pressure is coming from.

While the first half of April showed strong retail dominance, April 21–22 saw institutional demand kick in, with the Coinbase premium rising to 0.16%, per CoinGlass.

Coinbase Bitcoin premium index. Source: CoinGlass

Michael Saylor’s Strategy could be among those buyers. On April 21, Saylor announced the acquisition of 6,556 more BTC for approximately $555.8 million at an average price of ~$84,785 per coin. This brings MicroStrategy’s total holdings to an eye-watering 538,200 BTC, worth approximately $48.4 billion at current prices. 

On a smaller scale, Japan-based Metaplanet also added 330 BTC to its treasury, pushing its total to 4,855 BTC, the company’s CEO announced on the same day.

Meanwhile, investors who favor traditional financial instruments over direct Bitcoin holding have also begun to renew their interest. According to the CoinGlass data, on April 21, BTC ETFs recorded $381 million in inflows — a much-needed reversal after a prolonged period of heavy outflows. Since February, ETFs had suffered 33 days of net outflows versus just 21 days of inflows, with outflows strongly dominating in volume. The recent reversal suggests renewed confidence, particularly from TradFi-aligned investors.

Related: Bitcoin risks 10%-15% BTC price dip after key rejection near $89K

The dollar fades as Bitcoin rises 

Since tariff fears took grip of the market, institutional investors have kept Bitcoin and equities at arm’s length, but something shifted over the Easter weekend.

Crypto analyst Rekt Capital noted that Bitcoin has decisively broken out of its multimonth downtrend

“The multimonth downtrend is over. And when a technical downtrend is broken, technical uptrends emerge.”BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Rekt Capital

Another, more macroeconomic, factor may be the increasing tension between US President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Their growing rift, centered on concerns about inflationary pressure from tariffs and the Fed’s reluctance to cut rates, has cast a shadow over the US dollar.

The US Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar’s value against a basket of currencies, has been in freefall since February, reaching lows last seen in 2022. Trump’s public pressure on Powell, and speculation that he might attempt to remove him or other Fed officials, is fueling anxiety over the Fed’s independence — a foundational pillar of the US financial system. 

The potential consequences of a falling dollar for the global economy are difficult to predict, but one thing is clear: Bitcoin stands poised to be a major beneficiary. A decentralized, censorship-resistant money governed solely by code, with a fixed supply schedule and no central authority to manipulate its issuance. As confidence in traditional monetary systems continues to erode, Bitcoin’s narrative grows ever stronger.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Demand from financial institutions could push the price of Bitcoin (BTC) as high as $200,000 per coin in 2025, according to two research reports reviewed by Cointelegraph. 

Analysts from Standard Chartered and Intellectia AI said institutional Bitcoin demand from exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and traders seeking to hedge against macroeconomic risk could cause Bitcoin’s price to more than double this year.

“While the forecast is optimistic, it’s also conditional. Any black swan — from a major regulatory clampdown to a geopolitical event — can disrupt trajectories,” Fei Chen, Intellectia AI’s chief investment strategist, told Cointelegraph. 

Bitcoin ETF inflows since January 2024. Source: CoinGlass

Related: US Bitcoin ETFs clock biggest inflows since January as crypto markets gain

Bullish sentiment

The reports come as Bitcoin broke past $90,000 on April 22 for the first time in six weeks, reflecting traders embracing Bitcoin and gold as potential hedges against looming trade wars and geopolitical volatility. 

The price action followed the biggest daily net inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs since January. 

The US’s 11 spot BTC funds collectively pulled more than $380 million in net inflows on April 21, according to CoinGlass data.

Intellectia AI said institutional demand drivers — including corporate Bitcoin buyers and exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken — could continue to propel positive price action. 

Corporate Bitcoin treasuries already hold nearly $65 billion worth of BTC, according to data from Bitcointreasuries.net.

Hedgers still prefer gold over Bitcoin. Source: Binance Research

Hedging or speculation?

Gold and BTC “appear to have become more important components of investors’ portfolios structurally” as they increasingly seek to hedge against geopolitical risk and inflation, investment bank JP Morgan said in a January research note. 

However, Bitcoin’s correlation with gold — historically a preferred hedge against macroeconomic uncertainty — has been low since US President Donald Trump announced sweeping import tariffs on April 2, Binance Research said on April 7. 

In fact, Bitcoin has been more closely correlated with equities, Binance said. 

Paradoxically, sustained ETF inflows could further diminish Bitcoin’s status as a macroeconomic hedge, eroding one of its most attractive traits for institutions, Spencer Yang, a core contributor for crypto infrastructure project Fractal Bitcoin, told Cointelegraph. 

“Despite growing institutional interest, Bitcoin’s long-term resilience won’t be secured by balance sheet optics alone — it depends on real usage,” Yang said. 

“That means people actually transacting, building, and experimenting on the network — not just holding BTC as a speculative asset.”

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