A Pantera Capital-backed company, formerly Helius Medical Technologies (HSDT), has launched a major infrastructure initiative called Pacific Backbone to expand Solana staking and validation services across key Asia-Pacific hubs. The project will establish a high-speed, low-latency network initially connecting Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong, with the goal of reducing staking costs and improving performance for market makers and high-frequency trading participants.
The company, which holds over 2.2 million SOL and is the second-largest publicly traded holder of the token, is shifting its strategy from a passive treasury model to active infrastructure deployment. The buildout, set to begin immediately, aims to optimize performance and adopt new technologies by the second half of 2026, with liquidity-related products and services expected within 12 to 18 months.
"We see an opportunity to improve staking and validation services across Asia," said Cosmo Jiang, general partner at Pantera Capital Management, which co-led the firm's $500 million funding round in September 2025 alongside Summer Capital. Jiang described the initiative as critical for entities holding and building on Solana.
This infrastructure push follows the company's recent institutional-focused partnership with Anchorage Digital and Kamino, which allows institutions to borrow against natively staked SOL while keeping assets in custody. Despite this strategic expansion, HSDT shares fell 8.3% on the announcement day and have declined more than 90% since the company pivoted to its Solana-focused strategy in September 2025.
Separately, new data highlights Solana's dominant on-chain activity. In February 2026, the Solana network processed over 3.4 billion transactions, an 11% increase from January. This volume dwarfs its closest competitor, BNB Chain, which handled around 424 million transactions—meaning Solana processed roughly eight times more activity.
While Ethereum's mainnet recorded only 62 million transactions, significant activity has migrated to its Layer-2 networks like Base (316 million transactions), Arbitrum (123 million), and Optimism (68 million). Despite a monthly price decline of over 12% in February, SOL traded around $90.09 at press time, up 7.46% in 24 hours.
Institutional interest remains strong, with Spot Solana ETFs attracting approximately $950 million in net inflows since launch. Furthermore, Solana holds about 53% of the $15.34 billion USDC supply, positioning it as a major hub for stablecoin activity. On-chain data from Santiment indicates that a wave of panic selling, with realized losses nearing $1.3 billion in early February, appears to be easing as the price stabilizes between $80 and $90.
