Institutions Embrace Solana and Tokenized Stocks in New DeFi Push

Two major developments this week show a growing institutional shift toward decentralized finance and blockchain-native financial tools. Anchorage Digital has added Uniswap-powered DeFi capabilities to its institutional-grade Porto wallet, while DeFi Development Corp, a Solana-focused treasury firm, announced plans to tokenize its publicly traded shares via a partnership with Kraken and the xStocks platform. 

Anchorage Digital Adds DeFi Capabilities to Porto Wallet in Major Institutional Push

Anchorage Digital, a leading crypto custody firm serving institutions, has taken a significant step toward bridging the gap between decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance. The company has officially integrated DeFi capabilities into its institutional-grade Porto wallet, giving clients direct access to on-chain liquidity and token swaps through Uniswap.

This development marks a crucial evolution in Anchorage’s service offering, aligning with a broader trend of institutional adoption of DeFi. The move is expected to bolster the use of secure DeFi applications among regulated entities, as institutions look to move beyond passive crypto exposure and toward active participation in decentralized ecosystems.

Anchorage’s Porto wallet—used by high-profile clients including Maple Finance, the Sui Foundation, and decentralized exchange dYdX—was already known for its secure, regulated architecture. With Uniswap now integrated, those clients and others will be able to seamlessly access decentralized liquidity, execute token swaps, and interact with DeFi protocols, all within the compliance-first environment they require.

This upgrade positions Porto as a direct competitor to other institutional wallet platforms like Fireblocks, Fordefi, Blockdaemon, and Consensys. While those platforms have also explored DeFi access, Anchorage's emphasis on integrating a native DeFi experience via Uniswap puts it at the forefront of regulated DeFi engagement.

Uniswap currently has over $4.5 billion in total value locked (TVL), according to DeFiLlama, making it one of the most trusted decentralized liquidity providers. The integration not only broadens access to DeFi but does so by connecting institutions to one of the sector’s most liquid and widely used platforms.

Institutional DeFi Gathers Steam

Institutional DeFi—a concept that marries the decentralization of blockchain-based finance with the security and compliance frameworks required by large financial players—has seen increased traction in 2025. As regulators around the world continue to issue clearer guidance for digital assets, many banks, hedge funds, and asset managers are exploring ways to leverage DeFi without exposing themselves to unmanaged risks.

At its core, institutional DeFi seeks to combine the permissionless and open nature of DeFi with built-in controls for governance, audits, and risk management. For Anchorage, which holds a federally chartered digital asset bank status in the United States, the new Porto wallet integration allows clients to engage with DeFi confidently, knowing they are backed by compliant infrastructure.

This momentum is underpinned by strategic alliances as well. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has partnered with Anchorage for digital asset custody, signaling a broader alignment of interest between traditional financial giants and crypto-native platforms.

Anchorage’s DeFi wallet upgrade comes at a time when the broader DeFi sector has been volatile. According to DeFiLlama, total value locked across DeFi protocols has declined from $137 billion in late 2024 to $106 billion as of this writing. Despite the dip, experts point to rising institutional engagement and increased DeFi regulation as signs of a maturing market.

DeFi TVL (Source: DeFiLlama)

Anchorage itself has been expanding aggressively. In 2021, the company raised $350 million at a $3 billion valuation from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Apollo Funds. Most recently, the firm acquired Mountain Protocol, a move that led to the wind-down of the USDM stablecoin. The acquisition was seen as a step toward further consolidation and vertical integration in Anchorage’s business model.

The Future of DeFi: Secure, Fast, and Institutional

The integration of Uniswap into the Porto wallet is a pivotal moment in DeFi’s journey from fringe financial experiment to institutional mainstay. It not only enables Anchorage clients to access DeFi faster and more securely, but it also sets a new benchmark for how financial institutions can interact with blockchain networks.

As firms like Anchorage continue to refine their offerings, the lines between traditional and decentralized finance will likely continue to blur—paving the way for a financial future that is both programmable and institutionally trusted.

DeFi Development Corp to Tokenize Shares via Kraken and Solana, Marking a Milestone for Stock on Blockchain

Meanwhile, DeFi Development Corporation — formerly known as Janover — announced Monday that it will tokenize its company shares through a new partnership with leading crypto exchange Kraken.

The initiative will leverage xStocks, a tokenization platform developed by Backed and recently integrated by Kraken, to bring DeFi Development’s shares onchain. The platform operates on the Solana blockchain and was introduced by Kraken in May with a mission to make tokenized shares of major US companies like Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia accessible to non-US investors.

“We view the tokenization of our stock as a DeFi Lego block — one that developers and institutions can build on top of,” said Joseph Onorati, CEO of DeFi Development Corp., emphasizing the modular potential of tokenized equity in decentralized ecosystems.

DeFi Development’s entry into onchain stock issuance represents a rare real-world use case for tokenized equity, especially at the public company level. The company’s shares will be wrapped as digital tokens on Solana, one of the fastest and most efficient blockchains optimized for high-throughput applications — a natural fit for fractionalized equity.

The move follows a broader institutional tilt toward Solana. In April, Nasdaq-listed Upexi raised $100 million, allocating over 90% to SOL acquisitions. Similarly, Canadian firm Sol Strategies has increased its Solana holdings despite reporting a $3.5 million Q2 income loss.

DeFi Development, under its new name and leadership, has joined this trend aggressively. After a group of former Kraken executives acquired Janover in April and rebranded it, the company quickly purchased $11.5 million in SOL and laid out plans to raise an additional $1 billion in capital to grow its Solana treasury.

Market Reaction and Intraday Performance

The announcement drove early gains in DeFi Development’s stock price on the Nasdaq. Shares rose more than 3% in the early hours of trading on Monday before paring back. At the time of writing, the company’s stock was up 0.6% on the day, trading at $25.03, according to Google Finance.

DeFi Development Corp shares intraday performance on June 23 (Source: Google Finance)

Though modest, the move signals investor recognition of the company’s blockchain-forward strategy and its early lead in the emerging category of tokenized public equities.

Stock tokenization refers to the process of issuing equity as blockchain tokens that can be fractionalized, traded 24/7, and transferred peer-to-peer with minimal friction. These tokenized assets are typically backed 1:1 by traditional shares and maintained via a trusted custodian or partner.

While the broader tokenization sector — known as real-world assets (RWAs) — has grown to $24.3 billion in total market cap, tokenized equities remain a niche segment. According to RWA data provider RWA.xyz, tokenized stocks account for just $365 million, or 1.5% of the total market.

That may soon change, however, as both demand and infrastructure evolve. Kraken’s push with xStocks, and Robinhood’s reported plans to build a blockchain-based stock trading platform for European users, suggest a rising tide of interest. Even Binance floated a similar initiative in 2021 before regulatory hurdles forced it to abandon the effort.

Kraken’s partnership with xStocks aims to bridge global access to US equities by tokenizing them on public blockchains and distributing them to non-US investors through a DeFi-compatible interface.

By choosing Solana as the underlying network, xStocks is optimizing for scalability, low transaction costs, and fast settlement times — key features for high-volume trading of fractionalized securities. For institutions like DeFi Development, this provides a more efficient way to engage investors across jurisdictions without the traditional cost and time barriers of legacy market infrastructure.

The Bigger Picture: DeFi Meets TradFi

This latest move highlights a key theme in 2025’s evolving financial landscape: the growing intersection of DeFi and TradFi. While tokenized treasuries and real estate assets have gained traction over the past year, public company shares are just beginning to make the leap onchain.

By tokenizing its shares, DeFi Development Corp is not only offering a proof of concept for what public equity can look like in a blockchain-native world — it’s also inviting developers, investors, and institutions to begin stacking new financial primitives on top of tokenized corporate ownership.