Solana-centric Upexi taps SOL Big Brain for advisory committee alongside Arthur Hayes

Nasdaq-listed Upexi (ticker UPXI) has named Solana investor SOL Big Brain to its advisory committee, the company announced Tuesday. They join Maelstrom Fund co-founder Arthur Hayes as the second high-profile member of the group.

Upexi, which started as a consumer brand aggregator, pivoted to a Solana treasury strategy earlier this year, joining a wave of public companies exploring crypto balance sheets.

The bulk of these firms focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum, while companies like Upexi and Thumzup took less conventional bets on assets like Solana and Dogecoin.

Upexi began accumulating SOL in April with a $6.7 million purchase and now holds over 2 million tokens worth roughly $410 million. The company says it stakes substantially all of its holdings to earn about an 8% yield and frames its strategy as a way to offer investors institutional-grade exposure to Solana without the overhead of running infrastructure.

Its crypto-facing leadership now includes both Big Brain and Hayes, who rose to prominence as the outspoken co-founder of BitMEX and later for aggressively trading memecoins like PEPE.

Hayes has since shifted focus, backing high-yield DeFi protocols such as EtherFi and Ethena and arguing that the next wave of crypto gains will reward projects that share revenue with tokenholders.

Solana gains

The company’s Solana bet has thus far paid off, largely due to its timing. SOL was trading near a 13-month low of around $100 when Upexi began buying in April. It now sits above $208 according to The Block's SOL price data — more than double that level.

Its net asset value stands at $433 million, up from $114 million three months ago, while unrealized gains have ballooned more than 1,300% to $128 million.

Solana is riding a wave of institutional momentum, driven in part by expectations for a spot ETF approval. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas said on Monday a Solana ETF is now "100% certain," adding that "the baby could come any day."

His confidence follows the SEC’s recent approval of new exchange listing standards that dramatically shorten the timeline for crypto ETF approvals and eliminate the need for separate 19b-4 filings in many cases.