SOL Strategies buys Solana privacy startup Darklake as it expands beyond treasury operations

$SOL Strategies said Tuesday it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Darklake Labs, a Solana-native zero-knowledge startup, for $1.2 million, bringing privacy-focused execution technology and a new research team into the company.

The consideration includes $200,000 in cash and $1 million in common shares, with the stock portion subject to a four-month lockup.

Darklake developed Zyga, a zero-knowledge proof system built for Solana that is designed to enable private transaction execution while reducing front-running and sandwich attacks at the point of execution. $SOL Strategies said Darklake placed second in the DeFi track of the Solana Radar Global Hackathon, was accepted into the Colosseum Accelerator, and has academic research partnerships in Brazil, with a patent application in process.

The acquisition also brings in Darklake’s core team. $SOL Strategies said Darklake CEO and technical founder Vitor Py Braga, who previously worked in infrastructure engineering roles at Meta and IBM, is expected to join alongside co-founder and COO Amber Hales, who has compliance experience from Coinbase and Coincover, and Tiago Alves, Darklake’s head of ZK research and a university professor.

The strategic angle is broader than a small acqui-hire. Chief executive Michael Hubbard said the purchase is part of $SOL Strategies’ move toward a more active role in technology development within the Solana economy.

The timing is notable because $SOL Strategies has been scaling both its balance sheet exposure to Solana and its validator business. In its March 2026 monthly update, the company reported treasury holdings of 533,040 $SOL, including liquid staked $SOL, valued at about $43.9 million using $SOL’s April 1 price. The same update showed 3,813,468 $SOL in assets under delegation and 768,022 $SOL staked in STKESOL, its liquid staking product.

The company has also been working to broaden institutional access to its staking infrastructure. In March, Balance integrated $SOL Strategies’ validator as a Solana staking provider for custody clients. $SOL Strategies also said ARK Invest’s Digital Asset Revolutions Fund selected it as a Solana staking provider.