DeFi Development Corp. closed an approximately $11 million preferred-stock offering on Sept. 8 and said it plans to direct substantially all net proceeds toward additional Solana purchases. The Nasdaq-listed company described the security, trading under the ticker CHAD, as the first SOL-backed “Digital Credit” instrument; that characterization is the company’s own.
The SEC-filed company announcement says the offering involved Variable Rate Series C Perpetual Preferred Stock. It gives DeFi Development a financing route that does not increase its common-share count, although preferred dividends and the market performance of SOL remain relevant to the economics.
CHAD carries a variable dividend structure
CHAD was sold at $8 per share against a stated amount of $10. The initial annual dividend rate is 13%, equivalent to an initial effective yield of about 16.25% at the offering price, according to the filing. Dividends accumulate daily but are payable only when declared by the company’s board, and the rate may change under the security’s terms.
The shares are listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market. R.F. Lafferty acted as sole book-running manager, while the investor group included Thomas Lee, Fundstrat’s co-founder and head of research and BitMine’s chairman.
Net proceeds are earmarked for more SOL
Management expects to deploy substantially all net proceeds into SOL. The company said that approach should increase its SOL-per-share metric without issuing more common stock, but the filing presents that outcome as an expectation rather than a completed result.
The offering extends DeFi Development’s existing treasury strategy. BlockchainReporter previously covered the company’s purchase of 172,670 SOL, which took its reported holdings above $100 million at the time. CHAD adds a perpetual preferred-equity channel alongside common equity and other financing instruments.
The structure links financing costs to treasury execution
DeFi Development says SOL can generate native staking yield through its validator and onchain treasury operations. It argues that this feature differentiates CHAD from instruments backed by non-yielding assets, but investors still face the company’s execution risk, the preferred security’s dividend obligations and fluctuations in SOL.
The company also intends to manage CHAD’s dividend rate with the goal of supporting trading near the $10 stated amount. That is a management objective, not a guaranteed market outcome. DeFi Development said it will provide a separate update on SOL holdings and SOL per share after the offering proceeds are deployed.
