Forward Industries issues tokenized shares on Solana

Doohyun Hwang

Summary

Forward Industries said it has tokenized and started trading its shares on the Solana blockchain.
This case is the first instance of actual publicly listed company shares being directly used in the DeFi market; investors can deposit FWDI tokenized shares as collateral in Kamino and borrow stablecoins.
Real-time price information for FWDI tokenized shares is provided by the Pyth oracle solution, and it emphasized that this structure strengthens the connection between traditional finance and the digital economy.

Nasdaq-listed Forward Industries issued its shares on the Solana blockchain.

On the 18th (local time), Forward Industries said, "Our SEC-registered shares have begun trading on the Solana blockchain through Superstate's 'Opening Bell' platform," adding, "This is the first case of a publicly listed company's shares being directly used in the decentralized finance (DeFi) market."

Backed by Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital, Forward Industries aims to become the industry's largest Solana crypto asset finance company. Forward Industries currently holds approximately 6.8 million Solana (SOL), and its net asset value (NAV) is about $832 million.

Launched in May, Superstate's 'Opening Bell' is a platform that supports companies issuing and trading shares directly on blockchain networks using Solana's SPL token standard and Ethereum's ERC-20 standard. It is characterized by tokenizing actual shares rather than synthetic assets.

The tokenized FWDI shares issued this time follow Solana's SPL standard and easily integrate with various Solana-based DeFi services. The company highlighted the lending protocol 'Kamino' as a primary use case. Investors can deposit their tokenized FWDI shares as collateral in Kamino and borrow stablecoins. Real-time price information is provided by the oracle solution 'Pyth'.

Kyle Samani, founder of Multicoin Capital and chairman of Forward Industries, said, "By allowing FWDI shares to be used as collateral on Solana, we have placed a tangible bridge between traditional financial markets and the programmable financial systems that define the digital economy."

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