Forward Industries to Tokenize Shares on Solana With Superstate Partnership

Forward Industries, the Nasdaq-listed company holding the largest corporate Solana treasury, wants to bring its own equity to the blockchain.

On Monday, the company announced a partnership with fintech firm Superstate to tokenize Forward Industries (FORD) stock on Solana through Superstate’s Opening Bell, a regulated onchain issuance platform that lets public companies tokenize equity on Solana.

If the plan moves forward, shareholders would be able to bridge their common stock between brokerage accounts and Solana, potentially unlocking 24/7 trading, near-instant settlement and new pools of global liquidity.

While the plan seems like a big move for Forward, the company has not yet disclosed whether regulators have already signed off on tokenized shares or if it is still in the planning stage.

Cointelegraph contacted Forward Industries for more information but did not receive a response by publication.

Forward plans to make stock acceptable DeFi lending collateral

Forward Industries also plans to make its tokenized FORD stock available as collateral in onchain lending activities.

The company said in the announcement that it is working with Solana-based lending protocols Drift, Kamino and Jupiter Lend to establish tokenized FORD equity as an eligible form of collateral across their crypto lending platforms.

Kyle Samani, the chairman of the board of directors of Forward Industries, said the move reinforces their conviction that Solana will sit at the core of capital markets. He said this also gives shareholders direct participation in the future tokenized economy.

Related: Metaplanet becomes fifth-largest corporate Bitcoin treasury with $633M buy

Forward Industries advances Solana strategy

The announcement marks an escalation of Forward’s Solana strategy. On Sept. 8, the company closed a $1.65 billion Solana-focused private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing, with backing from Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto and Multicoin Capital. Forward used these funds to build the largest corporate Solana treasury.

Following this, the company also filed for an at-the-market (ATM) equity offering program of up to $4 billion, giving it flexibility to sell shares over time to support its Solana treasury.

Forward’s establishment of a $1.6 billion Solana reserve pushed the total amount of Solana held by companies to 17.11 million SOL tokens, worth about $4 billion. The amount is equal to nearly 3% of the entire Solana token supply.