Canadian investment firm SOL Strategies has secured a $500 million convertible note to buy Solana, the company announced on Wednesday, reflecting the growing interest in the crypto that has been popular among meme coin developers and others who favor its speed compared to rivals. 

The company, which trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker HODL, described the agreement with New York investment firm ATW Partners as the largest and first of its kind in the Solana ecosystem. 

“This is the largest financing facility of its kind in the Solana ecosystem and the first ever directly tied to staking yield,” SOL Strategies CEO Leah Wald said in a statement.

Solana, the sixth-largest digital asset with a $77 billion market capitalization, has surged more than 20% over the past two weeks, outpacing even Bitcoin.

The price uplift comes amid a resurgence in meme coins, with Fartcoin gaining more than 90% over the past month and others entering positive territory, according to CoinGecko data.

Solana was recently changing hands at $152, up 5% over the past 24 hours and 14% over the week.

Wald said that buying Solana would help the company become the leading institutional staking platform.

SOL Strategies' stock was recently trading for $2.27 CAD (US$1.64) per share, up nearly 25% over the past day. 

Receiving debt to buy crypto is hardly new.

U.S. software firm turned Bitcoin treasury, Strategy—formerly MicroStrategy—uses debt to buy Bitcoin to give shareholders exposure to the asset.

Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) now holds 538,000 BTC, or about $50 billion worth, making it the largest corporate holder of the asset. 

SOL Strategies said last month that it holds 267,151 SOL, today worth over $40.4 million. Token holders can stake or pledge their crypto to the network to help it run and receive rewards in the process.

Solana and its native coin has gained traction with investors and developers alike because it is a cheaper and faster alternative to Ethereum, the network behind the second-biggest crypto, ETH. 

Edited by James Rubin