Forward Industries launches Solana validator, $1.6B SOL staked

Publicly-traded Solana treasury company Forward Industries launched its first institutional-grade validator node on the Solana blockchain as part of its broader strategy to deepen its role within the Solana ecosystem.

The company announced the launch on Tuesday, saying that the validator runs on DoubleZero‘s fiber network, which powers the validator and uses Jump Crypto’s Firedancer client, a new independent Solana validator client.

Kyle Samani, chairman of the board of Forward Industries, said the move allows them to fortify Solanas resiliency and help ensure that it remains “the standard for institutional adoption” in decentralized finance (DeFi).

Forward Industries currently holds the largest Solana-based crypto treasury, valued at over $1.6 billion. The company is backed by crypto giants Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto and Multicoin Capital, and plans to be more involved in the networks ecosystem.

Corporate entities holding Solana tokens in their treasuries. Source: Strategic Solana Reserve

Forward Industries joins Solanas top 10 validators

Forward Industries validator launch immediately put the entity into the top 10 biggest validators by Solana (SOL) tokens staked.

Block explorer Solana Beach showed that all of Forwards SOL holdings, about 6.8 million SOL tokens worth nearly $1.7 billion, were staked.

As a result, it managed to surpass long-standing players like Staking Facilities and Coinbase, whose validators rank behind Forward with 6.7 billion and 6.2 billion tokens, respectively.

According to Solana Beach, the largest Solana validators are Binance staking, Helius, Figment and Jupiter.

All of these entities have more than 10 billion Solana tokens staked, ranking them the highest in terms of the number of tokens staked.

Top 10 validators by the amount of Solana staked. Source: Solana Beach

Related: Solana‘s $2.85B revenue outpaces Ethereum’s early growth: 21Shares

Forward launches validator with 0% commission

Validators are evaluated not only by the size of their stake but also by their commission rates. Commissions represent the percentage of staking rewards a validator keeps before distributing earnings to delegators.

Forwards 0% commission means that all rewards go directly to stakers, while higher commissions reduce their yield.

By comparison, Binance Staking, the largest operator with 13.9 million SOL, charges delegators 1% commission, while staking providers Figment and Ledger by Figment charge 7%.

Among the top 10 validators, the most expensive belongs to Coinbase, which charges 8%, reducing delegator returns the most among the top validators.

However, 0% commission could often be a growth tactic rather than a permanent figure. Running a validator requires infrastructure costs, and companies may raise their commission rates once they secure enough stake.