Tom Lee has become the recognized Ethereum whale, buying 1.5 million ETH in 50 days, turning Ethereum from a doomsayer to a "wait for the next decade" asset. While Solana, which was hyping "take down Ethereum" last year, seems to have lost its previous sentiment. In this wave of altcoin frenzy, the community has realized that "Solana also needs its own Tom Lee."

SOL/ETH Exchange Rate Continues to Decline

So who is Solana's Tom Lee?

BlockBeats has revealed 6 candidates from the community, each of whom has unique skills, with even the early SOL bull Raoul Pal not making the list.

Our final top choice is Anthony Scaramucci.

This Wall Street's most steadfast Solana Maxi not only holds absolute discourse power in both crypto and Wall Street but also has an undisguised enthusiasm for Solana.

Now let's see why Anthony Scaramucci stands out from names like Kyle Samani (Multicoin founder) and Chamath Palihapitiya (top Silicon Valley investor).

Anthony Scaramucci

Anthony Scaramucci can be considered one of Wall Street's most steadfast Solana Maxis. He was a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, founded the hedge fund company SkyBridge Capital in 2005, and gained fame for his brief tenure as White House Communications Director – 1 mooch (11 days). By hosting the annual SALT summit, he has brought together Wall Street leaders and built deep connections in the financial industry. As a seasoned fund manager, Scaramucci is not afraid to embrace emerging assets, often contrarian investing in market downturns, making him one of Wall Street's visionary investment representatives. In recent years, he has actively ventured into the crypto field, redirecting a portion of SkyBridge's capital to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and more, personally advocating for the crypto industry and increasing his visibility in the crypto community. Apart from his network, he also has his own Youtube channel with 170,000 subscribers, giving him considerable influence through his communication channels.

Compared to other "candidates," Scaramucci appears more resolute in his position on Solana. At the Solana Breakpoint conference in September 2024, he boldly stated, "I want the tokenization of financial assets to happen on Solana because I hold a large amount of Solana, and I believe this will eventually come to pass." He revealed on the spot that he is a Solana holder and predicted that Solana will lead the wave of global financial market tokenization. In May 2024, prior to this, Scaramucci teased a "Solana ETF coming our way" on Twitter. He firmly believes that after Bitcoin and Ethereum, Solana is poised to be the next batch of crypto assets to receive approval for a U.S. ETF, a "prophecy" that came true on July 2 of this year.

At the DigiAssets Summit in June 2025, he reiterated the slogan "SOL Will Flip ETH," emphasizing that this was not a denial of Ethereum but his "better understanding of Solana's narrative." While one coinbase company and traditional institutions began to aggressively position themselves around Ethereum, he still insisted on the view that Solana is the Ethereum killer, demonstrating his strong confidence in Solana's future.

Scaramucci has repeatedly emphasized his Solana holdings in public. As of early 2025, SkyBridge held a high seven-figure sum of Bitcoin and Solana on its balance sheet and had set up a $300 million crypto portfolio fund for clients, which he stated also included allocations to Avalanche, Polkadot, and others, although the report did not specify the holdings of each token individually but mentioned Solana as a significant part.

Behind SkyBridge Capital is the key that allows it to connect Solana with Wall Street. SkyBridge Capital was founded by Scaramucci in 2005. The company initially started by screening and investing in top external hedge funds, becoming one of the most well-known FoF (Fund of Funds) managers in the field. The fund's clients were mainly institutional investors (pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, etc.) and high-net-worth individuals. At its peak (2015–2018), SkyBridge's AUM exceeded $12 billion. By 2020, it gradually expanded into crypto assets and had a collaboration and equity relationship with FTX before FTX's closure (FTX once held a 30% stake in SkyBridge). The SALT Summit, which started operations in 2009, has grown into a "bridge between traditional finance and emerging technology" and covers topics in finance, technology, politics, and culture. Some prominent guests who have participated include Ray Dalio (Bridgewater Associates), Bill Clinton (former U.S. President), Tony Blair (former UK Prime Minister), Kevin O'Leary (Shark Tank, detailed later), Sam Bankman-Fried, etc. Although SkyBridge is not the largest fund globally in terms of fund size, its unique and prominent reputation in the international financial sector is due to its cross-influence in finance, politics, and crypto.

He has also written a book about his holdings titled "Solana Rising," which is scheduled to be released in the second half of this year. The target audience of the book is those newcomers to the traditional finance world who are learning about allocating to crypto assets. The content includes discussions of significant investors and players betting on Solana, an introduction to Solana, and its role in a cryptocurrency investment portfolio, among other topics.

Scaramucci's overall view of Solana can be summarized as "highly bullish with a long-term outlook." He is outgoing and articulate, adept at packaging grand narratives, and often uses bluntly exaggerated language to express optimistic expectations. His style is sometimes seen as degenerate or market hype, but it is precisely for this reason that he can successfully attract attention and garner interest.

Combining a Wall Street background with a passion for crypto, Scaramucci can articulate Solana's selling points in language understandable to mainstream investors. He discusses how tokenization reduces financial costs, how Solana addresses trust costs, and translates technical advantages into investment logic. Overall, he is one of the few individuals who have influential voices in both the traditional financial and crypto spheres. With this cross-disciplinary influence and his unabashed enthusiasm for Solana, Scaramucci is increasingly seen as one of the ecosystem's advocates.

Michael Edward Novogratz

Michael Edward Novogratz is a former Goldman Sachs macro trader, Fortress Investment Group partner, and the founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital. He is considered one of Wall Street's earliest and most heavyweight crypto advocates. His career spans both traditional hedge funds and digital asset investment, known for his willingness to bet on emerging markets and high-volatility assets.

Since 2013, Novogratz has been actively investing in core assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum and has played a significant role as a "bridge" between crypto and institutional money in various cycles, including the recent surge of Ethereum NFTs by public companies and holding a crucial position in the OTC platform. As a macro investor, Novogratz's view of Solana is somewhat similar to Raoul Pal's, focusing on the macro liquidity and institutional adoption trends. He believes that the next phase of crypto asset growth lies in on-chain securitization and tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), and Solana's technical architecture (high TPS, low latency, stable fees) allows it to meet institutional demands for speed and cost-effectiveness.

Novogratz has deep Wall Street connections and media exposure, and Galaxy Digital is one of the few crypto financial companies publicly listed in the US and Canada, giving his voice a strong signaling effect. He often promotes crypto concepts in traditional media such as CNBC and Bloomberg in a concise and straightforward manner. His style combines the steadiness of old-school Wall Street with the boldness of a crypto pioneer. His public statements often combine personal investment views with Galaxy's market data, making them both persuasive and strategically guiding. In terms of the potential promotion of Solana, Novogratz's advantage lies in his ability to use "institutional language" to pitch Solana to traditional finance, complementing Scaramucci's capital network and Samani's crypto-native evangelism.

Prior to the collapse of Luna, Novo's Luna tattoo, with BTC tattooed on the other arm

However, whether Novo will genuinely support Solana depends on whether the interests at stake justify his involvement. Novo has also earned significant returns on Solana in various ways. In September 2023, FTX Estate entrusted Galaxy Digital with the sale, hedging, and staking of FTX's application for bankruptcy of up to $3.4 billion in cryptocurrency assets, a significant portion of which was SOL (FTX acquired approximately 60 million SOL tokens between August 2020 and May 2021). The sale of SOL was divided into multiple auctions. In March 2024, the first auction sold 25 to 30 million locked Solana tokens at a price of $64 per token, a 60% discount from the market price. Galaxy Trading established a special purpose fund for this transaction to purchase these tokens and financed approximately $620 million. The second auction sold 1.8 million SOL tokens at prices ranging from $95 to $110 per token, with discounts ranging from 15% to 26%. Galaxy participated in both auctions, acting as both a "referee" and a "player," sparking community discussions.

Investors will need to pay Galaxy a 1% management fee, and the investment will generate returns through staking. Just one transaction brought in millions of dollars in revenue. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Galxy Digital's financial report released on March 31, 2024, showed that it invested $104.1 million in its Crypto Vol fund, including the purchase of Solana assets from FTX. This implies that Galaxy itself may have invested at least tens of millions of dollars in this transaction, and at the price of $64 per token, this transaction has already more than tripled its initial investment. According to Arkm's data, Galaxy Digital's main wallet holds $3.3 million in SOL. Analyzing its on-chain holdings, it has a total of 151,196 SOL tokens worth $25 million, in addition to tens of millions of dollars in SOL transferred to centralized exchanges with an "unknown destination," and holdings in other addresses. The actual holdings could far exceed this number.

In addition, Galaxy was also one of the initial institutions to participate in a SOL ETF. Back in 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 ETF application to the SEC for listing in the US. On the 14th of this month, the SEC responded, acknowledging the submission of the Invesco Galaxy's spot Solana ETF application.

Although Galaxy Digital's main source of revenue still comes from OTC trading of ETH and BTC, Novo's public discussions are currently more focused on Ethereum and BTC. However, Galaxy's significant SOL holdings, coupled with recent actions, suggest that with both motivation and influence, if Novo is willing to convey "faith" like Tom Lee does with his "crazy recommendations," their influence on Wall Street should be on par with anyone on the list.

Kyle Samani

The Block's Co-Founder Mike Dudas, in the discussion, cast his vote for Kyle Samani, who is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the next-generation crypto venture capital firm Multicoin Capital. As a post-80s entrepreneur (and former engineer), Samani quickly rose to prominence in the crypto investment world with profound insights into blockchain technology trends.

In terms of proximity to Solana alone, Samani is undoubtedly one of the biggest bulls among them. Multicoin Capital, under his leadership, started investing in Solana from the seed round in 2018 and added $20 million in Series A in 2019. In the peak year of 2021, according to disclosures on X, Samani's funds hold SOL worth "10-digit USD" (i.e., at least $1 billion) across multiple funds. This may account for 8-12% of Solana's circulating supply. By betting on Solana ahead of others when its feasibility was still in doubt, Samani won high returns for his funds. The successful investment in Solana made Samani famous overnight, and Multicoin grew to become one of the top crypto funds. Despite not coming from a traditional Wall Street background, Samani has built influence in the emerging financial circles with his investment track record.

Solana Founder Toly and Samani Discuss Solana's Development, Source: Lightspeed

As an early Solana investor, Samani has become almost a spokesperson for the Solana project. Multicoin has invested not only in Solana but also in a range of Solana ecosystem projects, including Jito, Drift, solscan, Dialect, Helium, and more. In an interview with Coinage in June 2025, he said, "In the past, everyone thought Ethereum was untouchable, but Solana is on an inevitable path to disrupt Ethereum." He bluntly stated that the Ethereum development team "missed an opportunity, failed to address scalability, led to skyrocketing fees, and poor user experience," forcing users to look for alternatives. He believes that Solana seized this opportunity and emerged as the biggest beneficiary.

At several summits in recent years, Samani has outlined Solana's grand vision. He believes that Solana can support an Internet-scale capital market (ICM), facilitating on-chain transactions of real-world assets such as stocks and bonds. He stated, "If global assets gradually move onto the blockchain, the crypto market cap could increase from $3 trillion to $50 trillion in the next decade." Solana has the potential to play a key role in this takeoff. Therefore, he is not afraid of short-term volatility, consistently overexposed to SOL, which also makes Multicoin's investment style more inclined to "Degen" from a perception standpoint.

Samani is rational yet passionate. He effectively uses data and facts to communicate but is unabashedly optimistic about projects he believes in, somewhat similar to Tom Lee. However, Samani is primarily active in the crypto investment community and developer circles. He shares his views through blogs, podcasts, industry summits, and more. Due to a lack of Wall Street background, traditional media exposure, and cross-industry celebrity effects, Samani's influence in the general public or traditional finance sphere is limited. Nevertheless, his enthusiasm and dedication to Solana have made him one of the most important advocates and thought leaders in the Solana ecosystem.

On August 19, 2025, Chamath Palihapitiya finally unveiled his initiation of the SPAC company plan named "AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM," aiming to raise $250 million. The investment target not only includes the DeFi sector of blockchain but also primarily covers energy production, AI, and national defense. The prospectus mentions that DeFi will completely transform various financial products, including international payments, smart contracts, and supply chain transparency. Therefore, his cryptocurrency investment bias may also mainly emerge in these types associated with the physical world.

Palihapitiya's investment philosophy has always been long-term and fundamentally oriented. He stated in 2021 that he holds a significant portion of his net worth in Bitcoin, bullish on Bitcoin's macro hedge properties. Similarly, his view on the public chain track focuses on network effects and utility. For Solana to truly impress Chamath, it needs to demonstrate its ability to break through Ethereum's moat in decentralization and security; on this point, he may still be weighing his options.

Palihapitiya has a social media following of over a million and podcast listeners. "All-In" keeps his relevance high. He excels at using plain language to analyze complex financial issues, with a humorous yet sharp style, thus attracting a large number of young investor fans. His charismatic personality lies in his boldness and rationality, being able to make bold predictions (such as early claims that Bitcoin would reach $200k) and speak candidly when the situation is unfavorable (such as "crypto has died in America").

This style makes his words both appealing and controversial. He mainly expresses his views through podcasts and X platform, rarely endorsing a specific project, more so offering industry-level commentary. Therefore, although Palihapitiya's prominence in the financial sector is unquestioned, when it comes to being a "Solana advocate," whether on his channel or personal account, his discussions about the cryptocurrency industry are dwindling. He is more inclined to discuss AI-related topics. Therefore, not just Solana, he is unlikely to become a flag-bearer for any single cryptocurrency other than BTC. Rather than being a public-facing evangelist, he prefers to be a behind-the-scenes capital pusher.

Kevin O'Leary

Kevin O'Leary is a Canadian businessman and investment personality, well-known for being a judge on the entrepreneurial reality show "Shark Tank." He founded an educational software company in his early years and successfully sold it, then built a broad influence through a television program, earning the nickname "Mr. Wonderful." As a TV personality, O'Leary's media influence is mainly through mainstream financial media (such as CNBC), personal social platforms, and participation in industry conferences. He is straightforward and practical, daring to speak about risks and opportunities. He has admitted to stepping on landmines and losing money in investments, but each failure has made him more cautious. This "frankness + experience-inspired rationality" style gives him appeal among retail investors. In the crypto field, O'Leary plays the role of a "rational bull," supporting crypto innovation but not blindly chasing highs, focusing more on long-term value and compliance. This conservative image gives his words a certain credibility in the eyes of traditional financial professionals.

O'Leary was initially skeptical of cryptocurrency, but in recent years has become an advocate for crypto investments, allocating about 11% of his personal investment portfolio to digital assets. In a July 2024 interview with CoinDesk, he mentioned holding various cryptocurrencies to achieve portfolio diversification and straightforwardly stated, "Solana looks good right now." O'Leary's overall view of Solana is cautiously optimistic, with a focus on compliance. He has emphasized multiple times that the crypto market needs clear regulation to attract mainstream funds. In his opinion, Bitcoin and Ethereum have already "settled in the dust," with most institutions having accepted them. New chains like Solana would have the opportunity to share in the growth of digital assets if they can prove their value within a regulatory framework.

This is not the first time he has been bullish on Solana, as his connection with Solana originated from his collaboration with SBF. In 2021, he became an FTX Paid Spokesperson, through which O'Leary received about $15 million, including equity, tokens in the FTX wallet, and tax reimbursement. Additionally, he has personally invested in FTX equity, with a scale of about a million dollars. During that time, it can be said that he and the FTX ecosystem, as well as Solana, enjoyed a wonderful "honeymoon period."

Just a month before the FTX rug pull in 2022, Reddit's r/CryptoCurrency community held a public meeting inviting O'Leary. During his communication with community members, he mentioned that he believed Solana's processing speed far exceeded Ethereum's, which would provide many possibilities for "financial institution adoption." Having met Solana's team, he considered them to be one of the smartest groups of people in his many years of working in software companies. He views crypto as "productivity software," similar to investing in Microsoft or Google, and believes that the success or failure of each project depends on the strength of the technical team behind it.

Looking back, after the FTX rug pull, when O'Leary participated in a hearing accused of "misleading investors," he did not belittle SBF to save himself (even though he himself lost millions of dollars). He stated that more data was needed to prove the situation and mentioned that SBF's and CZ's "ownership turmoil" ultimately led to the collapse of his financial chain. At the end of that hearing, he still believed in the development of the cryptocurrency sector, stating that "FTX's collapse will not stop the venture capital industry from pursuing the next unicorn. If there is a glimmer of hope in this chaos, it is that the crypto industry will eventually receive the long-awaited regulation."

After that, although Solana's price experienced a sharp decline, the team behind it once again brought Solana into the spotlight, seemingly confirming O'Leary's investment insight. However, his investment logic focuses on risk mitigation, avoiding betting on a single token by holding multiple excellent projects simultaneously. He openly admits that in his investment career, he relies on winners to make up for losers, so in the crypto field, he casts a wide net to increase his chances of success. His support for Solana is more as part of his investment portfolio strategy and he does not specifically act as a Solana evangelist.

However, as they say, "actions speak louder than words." With the changing policy landscape and Solana's development, it remains to be seen whether O'Leary will double down on Solana in his investment portfolio, thereby triggering a "cognitive storm" for Solana in traditional finance.

Joe McCann

Former JPMorgan trader Vivek Raman believes that the ideal candidate for this role is Joe McCann, and in fact, many others share this view.

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, as well as Solana and Multicoin founders. McCann has over 24 years of experience on Wall Street and Silicon Valley, having served as Senior Director at Microsoft in the Cloud and AI division (focusing on M&A and startups), led crypto systematic trading at Passport Capital, and founded NodeSource (a Node.js company). He has advised multiple blockchain companies (such as Zebec in the Solana ecosystem), is active in global blockchain summits, and frequently promotes emerging technologies to mainstream audiences.

McCann can be considered one of the most ardent Solana bulls among the candidates. He has publicly stated that he is a "die-hard fan" of Solana and during the bear market 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 facing an "identity crisis," and its positioning as a supercomputer is being replaced by Solana, so he holds "0 ETH" in his fund. McCann highlights Solana's technical and cultural advantages, pointing out that Solana's high-throughput, low fees, early adoption in mainstream culture, and the trend towards compliance combine to keep him highly optimistic about Solana.

Joe McCann and Dragonfly Co-founder Haseeb discuss the value discovery of blockchain in comparison to traditional IPOs during the Pumpfun ICO.

To further delve into the Solana ecosystem, McCann also spearheaded a series of practical projects. In mid-2025, he proposed the establishment of a Solana digital asset treasury entity called Accelerate, with plans to raise $1.5 billion through a SPAC and personally serve as co-founder and CEO. However, the SPAC transaction was terminated in August 2025. Previously, Asymmetric Fund had publicly suffered significant losses due to its heavy exposure to Solana, with the fund losing nearly 80% in the first half of 2025. McCann gave LPs the option to either exit or roll their capital into a specific illiquid investment (i.e., the Solana treasury).

Nevertheless, he continued to expand his presence in the Solana ecosystem, such as making early investments in BONK with significant returns, as well as investments in Syndica, Light Protocol, Ranger, and other Solana infrastructure projects. Overall, McCann is one of the few individuals who have been able to exert influence in both the traditional finance industry and the crypto space. With a Wall Street background and a professional analytical perspective, he vigorously promotes Solana and is considered one of the key advocates in the Solana ecosystem.

Who Is Most Likely to Become Solana's Representative Advocate?

In conclusion, considering the practical circumstances, Tom Lee of Solana is most likely to be represented by Anthony Scaramucci. Scaramucci holds a significant amount of SOL and has consistently voiced strong support for Solana, coupled with his Wall Street resources and media exposure. While Joe McCann's passion and dedication to Solana are equally strong, his recognition on Wall Street and among the general public is not as high as Scaramucci's. Other candidates may have varying degrees of shortcomings in terms of holdings, enthusiasm, or public image. Novogratz holds a substantial amount of Solana assets and his firm Galaxy Digital is set to launch a Solana ETF, but the platform behind it may remain more neutral, currently focusing more on Bitcoin and Ethereum; Kyle Samani is very bullish but lacks a traditional financial background and is more of an emerging investor. Palihapitiya and O'Leary, despite their appeal, have not consistently taken actions to lead Solana forward.

Looking ahead, who will ultimately raise the "Solana flag" high? It is likely that there will be more than one. Just as Tom Lee has a group of Ethereum believers behind him singing in unison to advance the entire Ethereum ecosystem, Solana also needs spokespersons from multiple dimensions. The community strength behind Solana's recovery from the trough may be even stronger than imagined.

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