Cathie Wood, the renowned American investor and founder of ARK Invest, has become a familiar name in financial circles since the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing stock market rally. Known for her bold focus on disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, genomics, and cryptocurrencies, Wood has carved out a reputation with her innovative ETF strategies. While these approaches have exposed her funds to significant drawdowns in bearish market phases, she has remained steadfast in her convictions.

Now, Wood is reinforcing her commitment to the crypto sector by adding exposure to one of the market’s leading altcoins—Solana—through her ETFs for the very first time. But what’s behind this move?

ARK Invest Adds Solana Exposure

ARK Invest recently introduced exposure to Solana and its staking infrastructure within two of its exchange-traded funds. According to internal documentation, as of 21 April, both the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) and the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) now include holdings in the Canadian-listed Solana Staking ETF (SOLQ) managed by 3iQ. With this step, ARKW and ARKF become among the first US-listed ETFs to provide direct exposure to Solana.

These funds are designed to offer broad access to transformative technologies, featuring a mix of tech companies, many of which have a strong focus on cryptocurrency development and adoption.

This marks a clear signal: Cathie Wood is doubling down on Solana.

Why Solana? ARK’s Bullish View

In ARK Invest’s “Big Ideas 2025” report, Wood had already highlighted Solana as a standout in the blockchain space. The report described Solana as a technological frontrunner, noting that despite Ethereum’s ongoing developments—such as Layer-2 solutions and the EIP-4844 upgrade—Solana still maintains the highest real-world transaction throughput among major networks.

While Ethereum, including its Layer-2 networks, achieves roughly 200 transactions per second (TPS), Solana currently handles around 800 TPS on average. What’s more, its Firedancer client—still in development—could push this figure into the hundreds of thousands, according to ARK’s analysis.

Solana’s performance, according to ARK, is rooted in deliberate architectural choices. It leverages high-performance hardware and parallel transaction processing, diverging significantly from Ethereum’s modular, Layer-2-centric design. Wood also points to Solana’s impressive rebound from its 2023 bear market low of $8. In nearly every key metric—active users, fees generated, transaction volume, and total value locked—Solana has shown strong upward momentum, rivalling both Ethereum and Bitcoin.

This bullish outlook is further supported by the rapid expansion of Solana’s developer community. In 2024 alone, Solana attracted over 7,600 new developers—outpacing Ethereum. ARK sees this not only as proof of Solana’s technical merit, but also of its rising significance as a top-tier Layer-1 blockchain. For Cathie Wood, Solana remains central to the future of scalable blockchain infrastructure.

Solaxy: Solana’s First Layer-2 Scaling Solution

Despite its high speed, Solana is not without challenges. Its monolithic design processes all network activities on a single layer, which can lead to performance bottlenecks during times of heavy activity. This architecture restricts the simultaneous execution of large transaction volumes while maintaining decentralisation and security.

Solaxy aims to solve this issue as Solana’s first Layer-2 solution. At its core is a modular rollup framework that batches transactions off-chain before committing them to the Solana mainnet. This reduces the burden on the base layer, enhances scalability, and improves network stability without compromising security.

A key feature of Solaxy is the Solana Virtual Machine, integrated with its own cross-chain bridge. This setup facilitates direct interoperability with Ethereum protocols, enabling users and developers to access the strengths of both blockchain ecosystems.

With Cathie Wood’s strategic backing and the emergence of advanced scaling solutions like Solaxy, Solana appears to be entering a new phase of institutional recognition and technological evolution.