Solv Protocol is set to launch its SOLV token on 17 January 2025, with listings planned on major exchanges. Although the project enjoys substantial investor backing and a surge in product demand, the occasion has been overshadowed by recent allegations of volume manipulations.
Bitcoin staking Solv Protocol is scheduled to launch its native token, SOLV, tomorrow. The token will be listed on major exchanges, including Binance, BingX, Gate, and Bitget.
From around a total of 9 billion SOLV tokens, there will be around 1.5 billion circulating tokens that the project has been pre-selling prior to this listing.
At the time of writing, the Solv Protocol’s TVL (total value of bitcoins and wrapped bitcoins locked in the protocol) stands at $2.3 billion. For perspective, Lido's TVL is $32 billion, and it has around 0.9 billion circulating governance tokens.
The team declared the SOLV token a governance and staking token. It will also provide protocol fee discounts. DeFi projects tend to give additional utility to governance tokens to increase their demand and value.
Solv Protocol was founded in 2021, aimed at developing a platform for creating and trading Financial NFTs. These NFTs were designed to tokenize various financial instruments, such bonds and repurchase agreements that exist in traditional finance but are difficult to implement in DeFi.
In 2024, Solv Protocol shifted its focus from financial NFTs to Bitcoin staking. This direction strongly contributed to the rise of the project's TVL. In just seven months, its TVL grew from $100 million to $3 billion.
On January 3, Hanzhi Liu, co-founder of another BTCFi project, Nubit, accused the Solv Protocol team of manipulating Bitcoin staking statistics and falsely reporting inflated volumes of bitcoins in the protocol.
Solv Protocol was founded by Ryan Chow, Will Wang, and Meng Yan – all three studied and made careers in mainland China.
Ryan Chow graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University and has two years of experience in blockchain projects.
Will Wang authored ERC-3525: Semi-Fungible Token Standard, which was the core product of the project before its shift to Bitcoin staking.
Meng Yan worked for many years as VP and editor of csdn.net – a Chinese software developer forum and portal.
Solv Protocol is headquartered in Singapore.
Solv Protocol has raised approximately $29 million across multiple funding rounds:
In 2020, the team raised $6 million, led by Laser Digital, the crypto arm of Japan's financial giant Nomura Securities.
Then in 2021, Solv raised $6 million from Binance Labs and a group of investors led by Blockchain Capital.
In 2023, Solv raised $6 million in a round also led by Laser Digital.
Finally, on October 14, 2024, Solv raised $11 million from Laser Digital, Blockchain Capital, and OKX Ventures.