Tom Lee (Thomas Lee) has become Ethereum's recognized new champion, purchasing 1.5 million ETH in 50 days, turning Ethereum from a doomsday vehicle into 'the next decade still depends on him'. Last year, Solana, which loudly proclaimed to 'take down Ethereum', lost its earlier momentum. The community reacted, realizing that 'Solana also needs its own Tom Lee'.
The SOL/ETH exchange rate continues to decline
So who is Solana's Tom Lee?
Rhythm BlockBeats has highlighted six candidates from the community, each possessing extraordinary skills, and even early SOL promoter Raoul Pal is not on the list.
Ultimately, our best candidate is Anthony Scaramucci.
This steadfast Solana Maxi on Wall Street, who holds absolute sway in both crypto and Wall Street, is more importantly, someone who has an unabashed passion for Solana.
Now let's take a look at why Anthony Scaramucci stands out from names like Kyle Samani (founder of Multicoin) and Chamath Palihapitiya (a top investor in Silicon Valley).
Anthony Scaramucci
Anthony Scaramucci can be considered one of Wall Street's most steadfast Solana Maxis. He was a Goldman Sachs investment banker and later founded the hedge fund SkyBridge Capital in 2005, becoming known for his brief tenure as White House Communications Director (1 mooch for 11 days). He hosts the annual SALT summit, bringing together Wall Street leaders and has built a deep network in the finance circle. As a seasoned fund manager, Scaramucci embraces emerging assets and has made counter-cyclical investments during market downturns, making him one of Wall Street's most visionary investment representatives. In recent years, he has actively engaged in the crypto field, shifting part of SkyBridge's capital towards Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, etc., and personally advocating for the crypto industry, increasing his visibility in the crypto community. Besides his connections, he also has his own YouTube channel with 170,000 subscribers, which also gives him considerable influence in terms of dissemination.
Compared with other 'candidates', Scaramucci appears more resolute in his stance on Solana. At the Solana Breakpoint conference in September 2024, he stated, 'I hope the tokenization of financial assets occurs on Solana, because I hold a significant amount of Solana, and I believe it will ultimately happen.' He revealed on the spot that he is a holder of Solana and predicted that Solana would lead the wave of tokenization in global financial markets. Previously, in May 2024, Scaramucci tweeted about the upcoming 'Solana ETF'. He firmly believes that after Bitcoin and Ethereum, Solana is likely to be the next batch of crypto assets to receive approval for a US ETF, and this 'prophecy' came true on July 2nd of this year.
At the DigiAssets summit in June 2025, he reiterated the slogan 'SOL Will Flip ETH', emphasizing that this is not a denial of Ethereum but rather that he 'understands Solana's story better'. While a host of coin-stock companies and traditional institutions are vigorously laying out Ethereum, he continues to assert that Solana is the Ethereum killer, demonstrating his strong confidence in Solana's prospects.
Scaramucci has repeatedly emphasized his Solana holdings in public. As of early 2025, SkyBridge holds nearly nine-digit USD amounts of Bitcoin and Solana on its balance sheet and has set up about $300 million in crypto portfolio funds for clients. He stated that this fund also includes Avalanche, Polkadot, etc. Although the report did not specify the holdings of each token, he indicated that Solana is an extremely important component.
As the saying goes, 'the bottom line determines the brain', he also wrote a book about his holdings (Solana Rising), which is planned for release in the second half of this year. The target audience is those new to traditional finance learning to allocate crypto assets, covering discussions by large investors and players who have bet heavily on Solana, as well as an introduction to Solana and the role it should play in a cryptocurrency investment portfolio.
Scaramucci's overall view of Solana can be summarized as 'highly bullish, long-term layout'. He is extroverted and talkative, skilled at packaging grand narratives, and tends to express optimistic expectations in straightforward and exaggerated terms. His style is sometimes seen as Degen or market hype, but it is precisely because of this that he can successfully attract attention and gather focus.
Scaramucci possesses both a Wall Street background and crypto enthusiasm, capable of articulating Solana's selling points in a language that mainstream investors can understand. He discusses how tokenization can reduce financial costs and how Solana addresses trust overheads, transforming technological advantages into investment logic. Overall, he is one of the few who can hold a voice in both traditional finance and the crypto sphere. With this cross-border influence and his unabashed enthusiasm for Solana, Scaramucci is increasingly seen as one of the spokespeople for the Solana ecosystem.
Michael Edward Novogratz
Michael Edward Novogratz is a former macro trader at Goldman Sachs, a partner at Fortress Investment Group, and the founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital, regarded as one of Wall Street's earliest and most influential crypto advocates. His career spans traditional hedge funds and digital asset investment, known for daring to bet on emerging markets and highly volatile assets.
Since 2013, Novogratz has been actively investing in core assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, playing a 'bridge' role between crypto and institutional funds across multiple cycles, including the recent Ethereum DAT boom among listed companies, where he played a crucial role as an off-exchange platform. As a macro investor, Novogratz's view on Solana is somewhat similar to Raoul Pal, focusing on the major trends of 'macro liquidity' and 'institutional adoption'. He believes the next wave of growth in crypto assets lies in the on-chain tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), and Solana's technical architecture (high TPS, low latency, stable fees) allows it to meet the stringent requirements of institutions in terms of speed and cost.
Novogratz possesses deep Wall Street connections and media exposure, and Galaxy Digital is one of the few crypto financial companies publicly listed in both the US and Canada, giving his statements a strong signaling effect. He often promotes crypto concepts in clear and straightforward language on traditional media such as CNBC and Bloomberg. His style combines the steadiness of old-school Wall Street with the radicalism of crypto pioneers, often integrating personal investment views with Galaxy’s market data, making his argument both persuasive and strategically guiding. In terms of the potential for promoting Solana, Novogratz's advantage lies in his ability to market Solana to traditional finance using 'institutional language', which complements Scaramucci's capital network and Samani's crypto-native evangelism.
Novo's Luna tattoo before the collapse of Luna, on the other arm is BTC
Whether Novo will earnestly stand up for Solana depends on whether the interests involved are worth it. Novo has also gained considerable profits from Solana through various means. In September 2023, FTX Estate commissioned Galaxy Digital to handle the sale, hedging, and staking of $3.4 billion in cryptocurrency assets during FTX's bankruptcy application, a significant portion of which was SOL (FTX acquired about 60 million SOL tokens from August 2020 to May 2021). The sale of SOL was divided into multiple auctions; in March 2024, the first auction sold 25-30 million locked Solana tokens at a price of $64 each, at a 60% discount from the market price. Galaxy Trading set up a special purpose fund to acquire these tokens and financed about $620 million. The second auction sold 1.8 million SOL tokens, with prices ranging from $95 to $110, with discounts of 15% to 26%. Both auctions had Galaxy involved, acting as both 'referee' and 'player', sparking discussions within the community.
Among them, investors will need to pay Galaxy a 1% management fee, and investments will generate returns through staking, bringing in millions of dollars from just one transaction. But that is nothing, as the company's financial report released on March 31, 2024, showed that Galaxy Digital invested $104.1 million in its Crypto Vol fund, which included acquiring Solana from FTX assets. This means that Galaxy itself may have invested at least tens of millions of dollars in this transaction, and if priced at $64, it has already tripled the invested funds. According to Arkm’s data, Galaxy Digital’s main wallet currently holds $3.3 million in SOL, and based on analysis, it holds a total of 151,196 SOL on-chain, valued at $25 million. In addition to tens of millions of dollars of SOL 'unaccounted for' transferred to centralized exchanges and other holding addresses, the actual amount held may far exceed this number.
In addition, Galaxy is also one of the first institutions to participate in the SOL ETF. As early as April, Galaxy collaborated with CIGlobalAsset to launch the CI Galaxy Solana ETF (SOLX) on the Toronto Stock Exchange. In June, they partnered with Invesco to submit an SEC application for an ETF listing in the US, and on the 14th of this month, they received a response from the SEC acknowledging the submission of Invesco Galaxy's spot Solana ETF application.
Although Galaxy Digital's current profitable business primarily revolves around off-exchange trading of ETH and BTC, Novo is more focused on discussing Ethereum and BTC in public. However, Galaxy's SOL holdings are quite impressive, along with recent frequent actions. With both motivation and influence, if Novo is willing to convey 'faith' like Tom Lee in a 'crazy calling' manner, his influence on Wall Street should not be inferior to any person on the list.
Kyle Samani
Mike Dudas, co-founder of The Block, voted for Kyle Samani in the discussion. Kyle Samani is the co-founder and managing partner of the new generation crypto venture capital firm Multicoin Capital. As an entrepreneur born in the 1980s (former engineer), Samani quickly emerged in the crypto investment world with deep insights into blockchain technology trends.
If we consider the closeness to Solana, Samani is undoubtedly one of the biggest bulls among the candidates. His firm, Multicoin Capital, started investing in Solana from its seed round in 2018 and added $20 million in the A round in 2019. At its peak in 2021, Kyle Samani disclosed on X that they held SOL worth 'nine figures' (i.e., at least $1 billion) across multiple funds. This may account for 8-12% of Solana's circulating supply. Betting on Solana when others were still skeptical about its feasibility earned the fund high returns. The successful investment in Solana made Samani famous, and Multicoin grew to become one of the top crypto funds. Although he does not come from a traditional Wall Street background, Samani has established influence in the emerging finance circle through his investment achievements.
Solana founder Toly discusses the development of Solana with Samani, source: Lightspeed
As an early investor in Solana, Samani has almost become one of the spokespersons for Solana projects. Multicoin has invested not only in Solana but also in a series of Solana ecosystem projects, including Jito, Drift, solscan, Dialect, and Helium. In an interview with Coinage in June 2025, he said, 'Previously, everyone thought Ethereum was unshakeable, but Solana is on an inevitable path to disrupt Ethereum.' He bluntly stated that the Ethereum development team 'missed the opportunity, failed to solve scalability, resulting in soaring fees and poor user experience', and users were forced to invest in Solana, which he believes seized this opportunity to become the biggest beneficiary.
In recent years, at multiple summits, Samani has described the grand prospects of Solana. He believes Solana can support internet-level capital markets (ICM) and facilitate the on-chain trading of real assets such as stocks and bonds, stating that 'if global assets gradually move on-chain, the crypto market cap could rise from $3 trillion to $50 trillion in the next decade,' with Solana having the potential to play a key role in this leap. Therefore, he is not afraid of short-term fluctuations and has consistently over-allocated SOL, which also makes Multicoin's investment style appear more 'Degen'.
Samani is rational and passionate, adept at speaking with data and facts, yet unreservedly optimistic about promising projects, similar to Tom Lee in this regard. However, Samani is mainly active in the crypto investment circle and developer community, sharing his views through blogs, podcasts, and industry summits. Due to a lack of a Wall Street background, traditional media exposure, and cross-industry celebrity effect, Samani's influence in the general public or traditional finance is limited, but his enthusiasm and commitment to Solana make him one of the most important advocates and thought leaders in the Solana ecosystem.
Chamath Palihapitiya
Jon Charbonneau, co-founder of DBR Crypto, proposed a rather controversial figure, Chamath Palihapitiya, stating, 'once you see it, you can't unsee it', believing that if Palihapitiya stands on stage, SOL's price could easily break through $1000.
Chamath Palihapitiya is a well-known venture capitalist and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He accumulated wealth early on as an executive at Facebook and later founded the investment firm Social Capital, becoming a prominent figure in the new generation of finance circles through a series of unique investments (such as early investments in Bitcoin and promoting several SPACs). He is known as the 'King of SPACs' and has frequently made headlines in financial media. In Wall Street and tech circles, Chamath is known for his independent thinking and willingness to challenge traditions, often expressing his views on market trends in his popular podcast (All-In), influencing many listeners. His financial network spans Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and his innovative and radical investment style has garnered a large following.
However, Palihapitiya is not actually well-liked by the community, and one of the reasons he is controversial on this topic is due to a conversation he had with then-co-host David Sacks in the 50th episode of All-In in 2021, where they jokingly discussed buying Solana tokens at a discount and considering cashing out. This conversation was clipped and spread, leading some to accuse them of crashing the market for profit. In response, Chamath clarified this year that he did not sell Solana at a high price, stating that accusations of him 'dumping Solana on retail investors' are baseless, 'If that were the case, those who bought in would be making money now' (referring to the subsequent surge in Solana's price).
All IN Podcast Episode 50 discusses his investment philosophy with David Sacks.
The argument that Palihapitiya is 'playing games to cut leeks' is not unfounded. Since 2020, Palihapitiya has operated dozens of SPACs, including Virgin Galactic, Opendoor Technologies, Clover Health, SoFi Technologies, etc. However, most investors have found it challenging to make money in the projects he has operated. Calculating, it has been found that if someone invested $100 in all of his SPAC projects, they would have lost over 70% to date. Additionally, after receiving a significant number of NO votes on X, he famously commented in his comment section, 'No crying in the casino!!', leading some community members to speculate that with the trend of 'coin-stock companies', Palihapitiya might want to leverage his Wall Street connections to shell a listing company for 'some crypto token', but the facts lack verification.
On August 19, 2025, Chamath Palihapitiya finally revealed that he initiated the establishment of a SPAC called 'AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM' to raise $250 million. The investment goals are not limited to the DeFi field of blockchain but also primarily encompass energy production, AI, and defense. The prospectus mentions that DeFi will completely revolutionize various financial products, including international payments, smart contracts, and supply chain transparency. Therefore, his investment inclination in cryptocurrencies may primarily emerge from these types associated with the real economy.
Palihapitiya's investment philosophy has always been long-term and fundamentally driven. He stated in 2021 that he holds a significant proportion of Bitcoin in his net worth and appreciates Bitcoin's macro hedging properties. Similarly, his view on public chains emphasizes network effects and practicality. For Solana to win Chamath's complete support, it needs to prove it can break through Ethereum's moat in decentralization and security. He may still be weighing this.
Palihapitiya has over a million followers on social media and podcast listeners, making his topics highly relevant. He excels at explaining complex financial issues in simple language, with a humorous yet sharp style, attracting a large number of young investor followers. His charm lies in balancing bold predictions (such as early assertions that Bitcoin would reach $200k) with candid statements during unfavorable situations (such as 'crypto is dead in the US').
This style makes his words both appealing and controversial. He mainly expresses his views through podcasts and the X platform, rarely specifically endorsing any project and more often commenting from an industry perspective. Therefore, while Palihapitiya's recognition in the financial circle is beyond doubt, regarding the dimension of 'Solana spokesperson', both his channel and personal accounts have seen decreasing discussions on the cryptocurrency industry, with more focus on AI-related topics. Thus, he is unlikely to become a banner-waver for any single cryptocurrency besides BTC; compared to being a front-stage evangelist, he prefers to be a behind-the-scenes capital promoter.
Kevin O'Leary
Kevin O'Leary is a Canadian businessman and investment celebrity, widely recognized for being a judge on the entrepreneurial reality show (Shark Tank). He founded an educational software company early on and successfully sold it, subsequently building a significant influence through television programs, earning the nickname 'Mr. Wonderful'. As a television personality, O'Leary's communicative influence primarily manifests through mainstream financial media (such as CNBC), personal social platforms, and participation in industry conferences. He is straightforward and pragmatic, unafraid to speak about risks and opportunities. He has candidly stated that he has also stepped on landmines and lost money in investments, but each failure has made him more cautious. This 'straightforwardness + experiential rationality' style gives him a certain appeal among the general investing public. In the crypto realm, O'Leary plays the role of a 'rational bull', supporting crypto innovation but not blindly chasing hype, focusing more on long-term value and compliance building. This stable image gives his words a degree of credibility in the eyes of traditional financiers.
O'Leary was initially skeptical about cryptocurrencies, but in recent years has become an advocate for crypto investment, allocating about 11% of his personal investment portfolio to digital assets. In July 2024, during an interview with CoinDesk, he mentioned that he holds various cryptocurrencies for portfolio diversification and candidly stated, 'Solana looks promising right now.' O'Leary's overall view of Solana is cautiously optimistic, with a focus on compliance. He has repeatedly stressed that the crypto market needs clear regulation to attract mainstream funds. In his view, Bitcoin and Ethereum have 'settled' and most institutions have accepted them. If new chains like Solana can prove their value within a regulatory framework, they may share in the growth dividends of digital assets.
This is not his first time being bullish on Solana; his connection to Solana dates back to his collaboration with SBF. In 2021, he became a paid spokesperson for FTX, earning about $15 million from this relationship, including equity, tokens in the FTX wallet, and tax compensation, among other things. Additionally, he personally invested in FTX equity, amounting to about a million dollars. It can be said that during that time, he experienced a wonderful 'honeymoon period' with the FTX ecosystem and Solana.
Just a month before the collapse of FTX in 2022, Reddit's r/CryptoCurrency board held an open meeting inviting O'Leary. In his communication with community members, he mentioned that he believes Solana's processing speed far exceeds that of Ethereum, which will provide many possibilities for 'institutional adoption', and after meeting the Solana team, he considers them to be among the smartest he has encountered in his years in software companies. He views crypto as 'productivity software', akin to investing in Microsoft or Google, and believes the success of each project hinges on the strength of the technology team behind it.
Looking back, after the FTX collapse, when O'Leary attended the hearing and was accused of 'misleading investors', he did not belittle SBF to save himself (even though he personally lost millions of dollars). He stated that more data was needed to prove it and that the 'shareholding dispute' between SBF and CZ ultimately led to his funding chain collapse. At the end of that hearing, he always believed in the development of the cryptocurrency field, stating, 'The collapse of FTX will not stop venture capital's pursuit of the next unicorn. If there is a glimmer of hope in this chaos, it is that the crypto industry will finally receive the long-awaited regulation.'
After that, although Solana's price experienced a sharp decline, its team brought Solana back to the forefront, suggesting that O'Leary's investment vision was quite accurate. However, his investment logic focuses on diversifying risk by holding multiple excellent projects to avoid betting on a single token. He openly admits that his investment career relies on 'winners compensating for losers', so in the crypto field, he also casts a wide net to improve his odds. His support for Solana is more as part of his investment portfolio and does not specifically act as a Solana evangelist.
However, 'the bottom line determines the brain', with the shift in policy direction and the development of Solana, it remains to be seen whether O'Leary will reallocate his investments to Solana, thus connecting Solana to the 'cognitive storm' of traditional finance?
Joe McCann
Former JPMorgan trader Vivek Raman believes that Joe McCann should be the choice, and in fact, many people think so.
Joe McCann is the founder, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer of the crypto hedge fund Asymmetric, which has received support from prominent institutions such as Andreessen Horowitz, Chris Dixon, Circle, and the founders of Solana and Multicoin. McCann has over 24 years of experience on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, having served as a senior director at Microsoft's cloud and AI division (focusing on mergers and acquisitions of startups), handled crypto system trading at Passport Capital, and founded NodeSource (Node.js company). He has served as an advisor to multiple blockchain companies (such as Zebec in the Solana ecosystem), is active at global blockchain summits, and frequently promotes emerging technologies to mainstream audiences.
McCann can be said to be the most steadfast bullish among the candidates. He publicly states that he is a 'die-hard fan' of Solana, and during the market downturn from 2021 to 2022, he 'bought as much SOL as possible in the $8–11 range'. Similar to Kyle Samani, he believes that Ethereum is currently in an 'identity crisis', and its supercomputer positioning is being replaced by Solana, so he 'holds 0 ETH' in his fund. McCann emphasizes Solana's technological and cultural advantages, believing that Solana's architecture offers high throughput and low fees, and that it actively integrates into mainstream culture early on, combined with the trend towards compliance, these factors contribute to his high optimism about Solana.
Joe McCann discusses traditional IPO issues and blockchain's value discovery during Pumpfun ICO with Dragonfly co-founder Haseeb.
To deeply engage with Solana, McCann has also driven a series of practical projects. In mid-2025, he proposed establishing a digital asset treasury company named Accelerate for Solana, planning to raise $1.5 billion through SPAC financing and serving as co-founder and CEO. However, this SPAC deal was terminated in August 2025. Previously, Asymmetric publicly suffered significant losses due to heavy holdings in Solana, with the fund losing nearly 80% in the first half of 2025, prompting McCann to offer LPs options to exit or roll capital into specific illiquid investments (i.e., Solana treasury).
Despite this, he continues to increase his layout in the Solana ecosystem, such as early investments in BONK that yielded substantial returns and invested in Solana infrastructure projects like Syndica, Light Protocol, and Ranger. Overall, McCann is one of the few individuals who can exert influence in both traditional finance and the crypto circle. He possesses a Wall Street background and professional analytical perspective while actively promoting Solana with a high-profile attitude, making him one of the important spokespersons in the Solana ecosystem.
Who is most likely to become Solana's representative promoter?
In summary, looking at the actual situation, Anthony Scaramucci is most likely to be Solana's Tom Lee. He holds a significant amount of 'SOL Bag' and continues to be highly optimistic about Solana while possessing Wall Street resources and media exposure. Although Joe McCann's passion and investment in Solana are equally strong, his recognition in Wall Street and among the general public is still less than that of Scaramucci. Other candidates have varying degrees of deficiencies in holdings, popularity, or public image. Novogratz holds a considerable amount of Solana assets, and his Galaxy Digital is about to issue a Solana ETF. However, factors behind the platform may be more neutral, currently focusing more on Bitcoin and Ethereum. Kyle Samani is very optimistic but lacks traditional financial resources and is more of an emerging investor. Palihapitiya and O'Leary, while influential, do not have a continuous action line to lead Solana.
Looking ahead, who will ultimately raise the 'flag of Solana'? It's likely to be more than one person. Just as there are a group of Ethereum believers behind Tom Lee promoting the entire Ethereum ecosystem, Solana also needs multiple-dimensional spokespersons, and the community strength behind Solana, which has risen from the trough, may be stronger than expected.
