SOL Strategies and Pudgy Penguins Launch PENGU Validator on Solana Network

In a new development, SOL Strategies has announced a landmark partnership with Pudgy Penguins to launch a dedicated Solana validator.

SOL Strategies has announced a partnership with Pudgy Penguins to launch a dedicated Solana validator. The partnership will combine SOL Strategies’ experience in validator technology with Pudgy Penguins’ vast community and brand recognition.

The company’s validator program offers key partners the opportunity to contribute to the Solana network’s security by operating a validator node. This also allows partners to earn staking rewards, which will be distributed to delegators who choose to support the validator.

A new blog post by SOL Strategies provides further details on the collaboration. The partnership will see the launch of the PENGU Validator on the Solana network, offering robust validation capabilities for the blockchain.

The validator, accessible via the Phantom wallet interface, will enable users to stake their SOL tokens while supporting Pudgy Penguins’ institutional goals.

''This mentality is why we chose to partner with SOL Strategies. Working alongside them allows us to build on Solana in a way that’s transparent and aligned with our community-first ethos,'' said Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins.

The move is more than just a branding partnership for Pudgy Penguins. As a leading Web3 brand with a successful toy line sold in over 10,000 global retail stores and billions of views online, Pudgy Penguins brings a unique audience to the Solana ecosystem.

The partnership also highlights the company’s broader goal to contribute to ecosystems that value simplicity, scalability, and user-friendliness.

This partnership follows SOL Strategies’ rapid expansion in March 2025, which saw the company acquire three prominent Solana validators.

In its monthly operational update released on April 7, SOL Strategies revealed the acquisition of Laine validator and the analytics platform Stakewiz.com.

This endeavor involved a massive investment of $24 million and effectively doubled the company’s total SOL stake to more than 3.35 million SOL, valued at approximately $388 million at the time.

As part of the deal, Michael Hubbard, the founder of Laine, joined SOL Strategies as Chief Strategy Officer, bringing his technical expertise and reputation in the Solana ecosystem to the partnership.

Hubbard is now leading SOL Strategies’ push for institutional-grade infrastructure and strategic partnerships, which includes the new initiative with Pudgy Penguins.

Operationally, SOL Strategies continues to deliver strong performance metrics. In March, the company reported a validator uptime of 99.955% and an average delegator APY of 7.41%, which is significantly above the network average.

These figures bolster SOL Strategies’ reputation as one of Solana’s top validator operators, making it a desirable partner for projects like Pudgery Penguins that seek institutional-grade infrastructure and reliability.

Pudgy Penguins is also making headlines through financial innovation. On March 20, Canary Capital filed an S-1 registration with the U.S. SEC for an ETF investing directly in Pudgy Penguins NFTs and the $PENGU meme token.

If approved, the proposed ETF would be the first in the United States to hold NFTs. The fund plans to hold Pudgy Penguins NFTs, the $PENGU token, and transaction-related assets like Solana (SOL) and Ethereum (ETH).

With this hybrid approach, the ETF aims to offer investors diversified exposure to the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem in a single product.