_This article is from: _ThreadGuy

Translation｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina); Translator｜Azuma (@azumaeth)_

Editor’s Note: On September 8, Beijing time, Nasdaq-listed Forward Industries (FORD) officially announced that it has secured a total of $1.65 billion in cash and stablecoin commitments to launch a digital asset treasury strategy centered around SOL through a PIPE transaction (private investment in public equity). This financing was led by Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital, with participation from one of the company's largest existing shareholders, C/M Capital Partners.

With the completion of the financing, Kyle Samani, co-founder and managing partner of Multicoin Capital, has been appointed as the chairman of the board of Forward Industries, taking on a leadership role in the SOL market similar to that of Tom Lee.

Earlier today, Kyle Samani appeared on the podcast of industry-renowned KOL ThreadGuy. In the conversation, Kyle Samani discussed the launch story of Forward Industries, future financing plans, and the operational strategies of the organization.

The following is a Chinese summary of the podcast content, translated by Odaily Planet Daily. For the sake of reading fluency, some content has been omitted.

• Host: Kyle, it's great to see you again in the live stream. You’ve been on quite a media tour lately; how's it going?

Kyle Samani: Hello, it's an honor to be here. We are currently in a "blitzkrieg" mode; this (Forward Industries) is one of the most exciting things I've ever done, and we are having a great time, so we must give it our all.

• Host: You’ve certainly done that, but I want to ask — how did all this happen? I remember you were here a month ago, and I asked you, "Solana needs a leader like Michael Saylor; I think you should step up," but at that time, you seemed to respond like a PR person, saying "there are no relevant plans at the moment." Yet here we are a month later, and it’s already happened… How did this come to fruition?

Kyle Samani: Haha, a month ago I clearly couldn't disclose anything, and I apologize to the audience for that. As for how this came about — my understanding of digital asset treasury companies has evolved, ultimately leading to the collaboration with Forward Industries.

My understanding has evolved along two main lines. First, I gradually realized that the approach of Strategy is actually very risky; they operate with leverage, needing to pay interest and even principal without cash flow support — Bitcoin itself does not generate yield, while Solana is completely different; staking SOL can generate yield, and deploying dollar assets in DeFi can also yield returns. If we are to implement a strategy similar to perpetual preferred stock, leveraging the full ecosystem advantages of Solana is clearly more reasonable, and from the perspective of capital market structure, this model is also clearly more coordinated — this was an important moment of realization for me.

The second opportunity was SEC Chairman Paul Atkins' speech on July 31 regarding the "crypto plan." For those who haven't read the speech, you can look it up; it was essentially an internal talk to about 4,000 SEC employees. Atkins clearly stated in his speech, "We will move the U.S. securities market on-chain." I began to think about this "crypto plan" and gradually realized that the process of migrating the securities market from the existing DTCC, Nasdaq, NIS, and broker/bank systems to on-chain infrastructures like Solana, Kamino, and Phantom could not happen overnight. While I wish Atkins could achieve this with a snap of his fingers, it clearly requires someone to drive the execution. I suddenly realized, as a leader of a public company, I am in an ideal position to realize this vision.

Our current core goal is to create the world's most native on-chain public company. Related activities can be divided into two main categories — one is participating in the capital market, which includes everything related to equity activities, such as on-chain stock issuance, financing, dividends, shareholder governance, etc. While I cannot guarantee that all commitments will be fulfilled, I am optimistic about it; the second is the operation of core business, which includes payroll, vendor payments, on-chain transactions, DeFi protocol usage, etc. We have a unique advantage to practice these scenarios, becoming early experimenters to prove the feasibility of this path to the world.

• Host: I personally want to ask you a question. While I understand you have the qualifications to become a "leading figure" in the Solana ecosystem (which is why I suggested it to you), why are you willing to take on this heavy responsibility? You could enjoy a comfortable life; Multicoin's performance is already excellent. Why accept such a significant mission that may face scrutiny and legal risks?

Kyle Samani: Because the mission is not yet complete, it's that simple. Multicoin is about to turn eight years old, and with my previous experience, I have been in the crypto space for nearly ten years, but the mission is still not complete.

I believe there are two types of capital allocators: 99% of people think their job is just to invest funds and let the executors do the work; sometimes projects succeed, sometimes they fail, and capital allocators profit or lose accordingly. The other mindset is how to directly influence execution outcomes through capital investment. I am a very proactive person and firmly believe I belong to the second category.

The "crypto plan" needs pioneers — if I don't take the lead, the future progress will be delayed. I am well aware of this, so I must accelerate the push.

• Host: Let's focus on Forward Industries. How long did it take to raise this funding and plan overall?

Kyle Samani: Two weeks. We raised $1.65 billion in two weeks.

That sounds absurd, right? My schedule was completely thrown into chaos during those two weeks — it’s still a mess now. I am in a mountain time zone (UTC -7), while the big funds are mostly in the eastern time zone (UTC-4), so many times I had to wake up at 6 AM to talk with institutional investors and have late-night meetings with Asian investors. We worked tirelessly and ultimately succeeded. I must thank the friends at Galaxy Digital and Jump. They have always fought alongside me.

• Host: That sounds incredible. Completing the fundraising in two weeks — does that mean there is extremely strong demand for these assets? Are people scrambling to buy Solana, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies? What does this phenomenon indicate?

Kyle Samani: I understand what you mean. We originally hoped to push forward quickly. We could have extended the fundraising period by two weeks; there are no legal restrictions on that, but as I mentioned earlier — the mission is not yet complete, and I value efficiency in my work. Based on our work schedule, last Monday was the earliest we could start, and we determined that time point two weeks ago. At that time, we decided to sprint for those two weeks, and we did it.

As for market demand? I can only say that our team's background excites investors tremendously. We are fortunate to have three strong yet distinct teams. Galaxy Digital is one of the top financial firms in the crypto space, and as the largest counterparty, they have handled the liquidation and locked sales of SOL assets left over from FTX. They also have the best block trading and staking operation teams. Jump needs no introduction; they are one of the largest trading firms globally and the biggest market maker in the cryptocurrency space, and they are developing Firedancer, with an extremely deep layout in the Solana ecosystem. As for us, we are the largest VC in Solana itself and its ecosystem.

Everything came together naturally. We are like a dream team, ready to create miracles. Even before the formal signing, the three of us had already begun collaborating. We were like a wound-up spring, sprinting forward.

• Host: Your speed of deploying funds is astonishing — I remember it took only about 48 hours? The average price was around $230. Was this planned? Did you go into a buying frenzy for SOL? What was the specific deployment strategy?

Kyle Samani: I cannot comment on the operational details; we officially announced yesterday that we bought 6.82 million SOL. As for when and how we bought, I really can't disclose that.

The only thing I can say is, I told everyone we want to become the world's most native on-chain company, which means the first SOL we bought had to be done on-chain — we purchased the first $1 million worth of SOL on the Solana chain through Dflow at market price. I posted the relevant transaction ID on X earlier today, and it is also recorded in the press release.

• Host: An audience member asked if you considered using Jupiter's dollar-cost averaging feature?

Kyle Samani: We are aware of Jupiter's dollar-cost averaging feature, but it may not be suitable for us given our scale.

• Host: Are there plans to raise more funds to continue buying more SOL?

Kyle Samani: I have done so much work not just to raise $1.65 billion and then stop there. My vision is much larger.

• Host: Do you have a specific target? For example, how much of the circulating supply of SOL does Forward Industries plan to acquire?

Kyle Samani: No, I don't. I think when Strategy started, Michael Saylor also didn't anticipate that their balance sheet would reach such astonishing figures of $50 billion or $80 billion. What I learned from that is, if things go well, the scale will far exceed expectations, so my ambitions are much greater than the current situation.

• Host: Since you must have drawn inspiration from pioneers with similar structures (like Strategy), can we learn anything from their experiences? Do you think Strategy, Tom Lee (BitMine), or other digital asset treasuries (DAT) made strategic missteps that give you the opportunity to avoid repeating them or to improve based on that?

Kyle Samani: We do believe there is room for optimization in many practices, but I won't specify them in the podcast. We have had in-depth discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of various teams — each team has its pros and cons, and no one is perfect or completely flawed.

I respect this question, but as the chairman of a public company, my hands are indeed somewhat tied, and I must operate within established constraints.

• Host: I'm curious — you mentioned at the beginning that SOL is a higher quality asset vehicle than BTC because SOL has operational space for yield that BTC cannot match. How do you understand this difference and design implementable strategies? You may not need to disclose specific plans, but can you discuss the potential that can be tapped into?

Kyle Samani: Yes, I can't disclose specific details, but I can say this — there are a lot of DeFi protocols on Solana, and I believe the audience is familiar with these protocols, and we plan to fully leverage them. With the collective intelligence of Multicoin, Galaxy, and Jump, we have the capability to intelligently utilize these tools.

• Host: What strategy did you use to promote Solana's narrative to the traditional financial world? For example, when you appear on traditional media like CNBC, how do you construct the narrative framework for Solana based on what the audience wants to hear?

Kyle Samani: Our positioning for Solana has always been — to become the infrastructure of the internet capital market.

I don't think "internet capital market" is a gimmick; this is our vision. This vision encompasses multiple meanings: operating 24/7, permissionless, and programmability. This means that as long as you have a phone and internet connection, you can trade any asset — even without a dedicated entry point, you can operate through a Telegram bot or trade on a prediction market while watching a football game on TV. This is the vision of the internet capital market, and Solana is the best foundation to realize this vision.

Therefore, "internet capital market" is the first pillar of our core narrative, and further breaking it down, I want to emphasize two specific dimensions.

First is the global securities trading volume; currently, Solana can handle about 10 billion transactions daily, which is enough to settle all finalized global securities trades, but if we include all limit orders and cancellations, it still cannot handle everything, so the mission is not yet complete.

Second is the topic of stablecoins. Ethereum often boasts of being the "stablecoin chain," and Tom Lee frequently promotes this on television. Although more stablecoins are issued on Ethereum, these funds rarely flow — capital is meaningless if it does not flow. Just like the Federal Reserve never talks about global wealth or national wealth; they only focus on GDP, which measures the velocity and turnover of capital. The capital velocity and dollar turnover on Solana are far higher than on other chains, and I believe this is the most critical metric. To serve a global population of 8 billion, we need a public chain that can scale — Ethereum's 20 TPS is clearly inadequate.

• Host: Do you think Solana's advancement of the "internet capital market" vision can effectively wash away the label of "meme coin scam chain"? Is this important for traditional finance and the global market?

Kyle Samani: Not important. Only haters say such things, and they are very hypocritical; there are plenty of scams on Ethereum (I don't want to delve into this topic). This is just an emotional outburst from people; the reality is that if you provide people with a permissionless financial market, they will do many things you don't like — you have to accept that fact.

Just like how people holding guns can lead to violent incidents, this is an age-old truth. Haters will always find reasons to hate, and what we need to do is look beyond the surface and focus on the essence of the technology — what can this technology achieve that traditional technologies cannot? Of course, those core features — global access, 24/7 operation, permissionless, programmability, and scalability to support 8 billion people. These are what matter.

• Host: I don't know if you've noticed, but when Tom Lee started promoting Worldcoin recently, the community's view of treasury companies subtly changed — many people might think, "Wait, aren't you part of the Ethereum camp?" In your case, do you see yourself as a "Solana ambassador"? Although other assets are also worth attention, Forward Industries will focus on investing in Solana — how do you view this positioning?

Kyle Samani: I think it is inaccurate to see me as a "Solana ambassador." Especially in the context of comparing with Strategy and Tom Lee, this label is essentially a statement looking backward. I do not agree with backward-looking statements; I prefer to look to the future.

My line of thinking is, who can shape the future of the internet capital market? And to achieve this, the best positioning is to become a public company. We will fully realize the vision of the internet capital market by becoming the world's most native public company.

Fortunately, Forward Industries is providing us with such a practical platform, just as the name of the company suggests — do not look back, look forward (Forward).

……

(The subsequent content did not discuss Forward Industries further but focused on popular trends in the Solana ecosystem, such as PUMP. Those interested can watch the original video.)

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