In brief
- DeFi Development Corp. announced a collaboration Friday with Solana meme coin Bonk.
- The pair will collectively work to generate greater stake in a joint validator node.
- Shares of DFDV finished Friday up more than 74%, marking a new all-time high.
DeFi Development Corp, the AI-powered real estate platform building a digital assets treasury centered on Solana, announced Friday that it’s teaming with leading Solana meme coin Bonk (BONK) on a jointly backed Solana validator node—and its stock continued to blast off to new highs.
The Nasdaq-listed firm (trading as DFDV) and meme coin team will collectively work to increase the delegated stake, or the amount of Solana tokens committed to its validator, sharing rewards in the process.
“DFDV and BONK are their own category leaders,” Parker White, CIO and COO of DeFi Development Corp. told Decrypt. “By joining forces, we can reap the benefits of each other’s own unique positioning and brand awareness.”
DeFi Development Corp. will handle the day-to-day operations of the validator as Bonk takes on “a key role in promoting the validator and engaging its community to attract stake,” said White.
It’s the firm’s second move related to Solana validators, after it recently acquired an unnamed Solana validator business for $3.5 million in assets, putting it at what White previously called “the core of Solana” in the process.
Its connection with the BONK meme coin community further fuels that mission.
“This validator partnership is a natural next step in Bonk’s mission to empower our community and accelerate the adoption of Solana,” pseudonymous Bonk core contributor Nom said, in a statement. “By teaming up with DeFi Dev Corp., we’re not only reinforcing the decentralized infrastructure of Solana, but also creating a new standard for how community tokens can scale and sustain their ecosystems.”
Bonk will use a portion of the validator rewards earned from securing Solana via its proof-of-stake consensus mechanism to purchase and burn BONK tokens, White told Decrypt.
DFDV, formerly Janover, has quickly fueled its Solana treasury which was first announced in early April. It purchased more than 172,000 SOL earlier this week, pushing its balance beyond $100 million worth of Solana in the process.
Shares of DFDV skyrocketed Friday, finishing the trading day up more than 74% to finish at an all-time high price of $156.99. The stock is up 3,133% year-to-date.
BONK is one of the most valuable meme coins on the market, and has the second-largest market cap of any Solana-based meme coin—behind only President Trump’s official token.
Edited by Andrew Hayward