From cattle and horse engineers to crypto billionaires: Solana helmsman toly's wealth exposed

Original Title: Anatoly Yakovenko: Net Worth And On-Chain Holdings In 2026

Original Author: 0xKira, Arkham

Original Compilation: Moni, Odaily Planet Daily

Anatoly Yakovenko (@toly) is the creator of the Solana blockchain and has become a leading figure in the blockchain industry, as well as a well-known billionaire in the field. This article will explore his personal wealth.

As one of the most influential figures in the cryptocurrency space, Anatoly Yakovenko founded one of the most widely used blockchain platforms, Solana. Based on existing information, as well as the number of tokens he personally holds and his equity stake in Solana Labs, it is estimated that his net worth in 2026 could range from $500 million to $1.2 billion, with the wide range primarily due to significant fluctuations in the price of Solana tokens recently.

Early Life of Anatoly Yakovenko

Anatoly Yakovenko was born in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States with his family in the early 1990s, settling in Illinois. He showed an early talent for computer science and engineering, eventually earning a degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the top institutions in the field in the United States.

Anatoly Yakovenko's academic background focused on distributed systems and compression algorithms, which later proved crucial for his innovations in the blockchain space. According to information disclosed on LinkedIn (as shown below), after graduation, he successfully joined Qualcomm, where he worked on operating system-level software and distributed systems for over a decade, gaining substantial experience. However, this experience at a leading telecommunications technology company also allowed Anatoly Yakovenko to accumulate deep expertise in building large-scale, high-throughput systems.

During his time at Qualcomm, Anatoly Yakovenko also participated in the development of technologies that required coordination across multiple devices and precise timing, a challenge conceptually similar to blockchain consensus mechanisms. He later worked briefly at Dropbox, further deepening his understanding of the distributed computing challenges in consumer-facing applications.

How Did Anatoly Yakovenko Enter the Cryptocurrency Space?

Like many others, Anatoly Yakovenko initially entered the cryptocurrency space through Bitcoin mining. It is reported that he and his friends used the profits from mining to subsidize the costs of graphics processors for their side projects. This experience allowed him to witness firsthand the scalability limitations of Bitcoin and Ethereum, which could only handle a limited number of transactions per second, leading to bottlenecks and high fees that seemed incompatible with mainstream applications.

Anatoly Yakovenko did not view these limitations as inherent flaws in blockchain technology but began to explore whether technologies from other fields could solve the throughput problem. He drew inspiration from his telecommunications background, particularly the concept of using time itself as a reliable reference point in distributed systems.

In November 2017, Anatoly Yakovenko published a white paper that deeply described the "Proof of History" technology, a cryptographic technique used to create a verifiable passage of time between events. This innovation allows network validators to process transactions in a predetermined order without extensive communication between nodes, significantly increasing potential throughput, and the Solana blockchain is fundamentally built on this concept.

Soon, Anatoly Yakovenko recruited former Qualcomm colleagues Greg Fitzgerald and Stephen Akridge to help build a prototype. The team officially founded Solana Labs in 2018 and secured initial funding for the development protocol. One of the co-founders of Solana, Raj Gokal, also joined the project shortly after the release of the "Proof of History" white paper, serving as the Chief Operating Officer of Solana Labs (as shown in the image of Solana's core founding team). Solana Labs launched its first testnet in 2018, followed by the mainnet beta in March 2020, entering the market at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tracking Anatoly Yakovenko's On-Chain Holdings

When Solana launched, a total of 500 million SOL tokens were minted, with 12.5% allocated to the founding team, including Anatoly Yakovenko. A Solana address starting with "9QgXq" is widely rumored to be associated with Anatoly Yakovenko (as shown below), but this has not been confirmed. This wallet holds over 136,725 SOL tokens, most of which are staked. Early transactions transferred millions of SOL tokens to this address. This wallet address has been active for over five years, and if it indeed belongs to Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, the value of the SOL tokens he holds would exceed $11 million.

Additionally, by tracking the historical transaction records of Anatoly Yakovenko's staking account, it can be seen that the related account has made large SOL transactions to multiple Solana addresses. For example, between August 2024 and November 2024, over 3 million SOL tokens were unstaked and transferred, with over 1.5 million SOL tokens still staked across multiple addresses, including 9E8zG, JQ5jC, A6mJn, and 7pgzZ. If these addresses also belong to Anatoly Yakovenko, the value of the SOL tokens he holds would far exceed current estimates, potentially nearing $122 million at current prices.

Another address suspected to be related to Anatoly Yakovenko is the Solana domain toly.sol, as his username on X is Toly. Tracking this domain reveals that its owner is an address starting with "86xCn," which currently holds various tokens worth over $1.3 million. However, the value of this address is primarily based on illiquid tokens, so the actual liquid value of the tokens held is only about $16,500, equivalent to 203.8 SOL.

Tracking Anatoly Yakovenko's Off-Chain Holdings

In addition to holding tokens, Anatoly Yakovenko also holds a significant equity stake in Solana Labs, which is currently primarily responsible for the development of the Solana protocol and its related infrastructure. Although the specific ownership percentage has not been publicly disclosed, it is estimated that he holds approximately 5% to 10% of Solana Labs.

As a private company, Solana Labs' valuation has not been publicly disclosed. Solana Labs has previously gone through multiple rounds of financing, with investors including well-known venture capital firms such as a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), Polychain Capital, and Multicoin Capital. These investments have pushed the company's valuation into the billions, with many estimating its value to be between $5 billion and $8 billion. Based on these valuations, the value of Anatoly Yakovenko's equity stake is estimated to be between $250 million and $800 million, not including the tokens he personally holds.

Although the valuation of Solana Labs is still partially tied to the market performance of SOL tokens, the dual ownership structure of personal token holdings and company equity provides a degree of diversification for Anatoly Yakovenko's wealth. While the price of SOL tokens may fluctuate significantly, company equity represents a more stable asset, especially as Solana Labs' business scope expands from protocol development to other blockchain infrastructure projects.

In addition to holding shares in Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko is also an active angel investor, having invested in over 40 companies. Some of these companies have grown into giants within the Solana ecosystem, including liquidity staking service providers Jito Labs, Solayer, perpetual DEX Drift Protocol and Infinex, as well as staking infrastructure projects like Helius.

Who Holds the Most Solana?

As an emerging blockchain, Solana has made significant progress since its inception. Today, the distribution of Solana tokens shows a diverse characteristic, with holder types including institutional investors, exchanges, founders, and retail participants. Major institutional holders include the Solana treasury company, cryptocurrency exchanges that hold tokens on behalf of users, Solana ETFs, and staking service providers.

However, according to existing data analysis, the largest holder of SOL tokens is likely the winning bidder from the FTX bankruptcy auction. After the centralized exchange FTX collapsed, the SOL tokens held by its assets were auctioned as part of the liquidation process. During this process, 41 million SOL tokens were sold, with Galaxy Digital and Pantera Capital acquiring the majority of the SOL tokens. Although these tokens are subject to lock-up and vesting schedules, approximately 60-70% of the sold SOL tokens have been unlocked and may have been sold. Considering this, Galaxy Digital may still hold around 6-8 million SOL, while Pantera may still hold around 3-5 million SOL.

In 2025, the Solana treasury company became a focal point. Due to the highly public nature of its holdings, the largest SOL holder is Forward Industries, a Solana treasury company (as shown below), which currently holds 6.9 million SOL tokens (worth $583 million), accounting for 1.115% of the total SOL supply. Other Solana treasury companies lag far behind, with the nine companies following Forward Industries collectively holding only 1.5% of the total SOL supply.

In terms of custodial service providers, some centralized exchanges also offer SOL token custody services for users. For example, Binance's latest proof of reserves shows that the exchange holds over 24.2 million SOL tokens. Similarly, ETF providers have also become one of the major holders of SOL tokens, with the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL) holding over 5.5 million SOL tokens, making it the largest spot SOL ETF currently.

Among individual holders, while Anatoly Yakovenko may rank high, he may not necessarily be the individual holding the most SOL tokens, as other co-founders of Solana Labs and early team members have also received a significant number of SOL token allocations. Additionally, some early private investors may even hold more SOL tokens than the co-founders of Solana Labs.

Anatoly Yakovenko's Net Worth Fluctuates Significantly with the Market

Over time, Anatoly Yakovenko's net worth is likely closely related to Solana's market performance, experiencing significant fluctuations in its stock price (the chart below shows the price trend of Solana tokens in recent years). In November 2021, when the price of SOL reached a cyclical high of about $260, the combined value of his tokens and company equity may have pushed his net worth above $2 billion, possibly even nearing $3 billion, depending on the value of his stake in Solana Labs.

On the other hand, the crypto bear market of 2022 severely compressed Anatoly Yakovenko's asset value, as the price of SOL briefly fell below $10, causing the value of the tokens he held to drop by over 95% from its peak. During this period, network outages and Solana's close ties with FTX and Alameda Research further negatively impacted token prices and ecosystem sentiment. Assuming Anatoly Yakovenko's net worth trends align with market fluctuations, it is possible that during the bear market, his net worth fell below $100 million at one point.

However, as the market returned to a bull run between 2023 and 2025, Anatoly Yakovenko's net worth is likely to grow as well, along with the increasingly mature equity value of Solana Labs (currently estimated between $4 billion and $10 billion), which could again push Anatoly Yakovenko's net worth into the billions.

At the beginning of 2026, the cryptocurrency market experienced a crash, and the price of Solana also fell below $100. Anatoly Yakovenko's net worth valuation has basically remained between $500 million and $1.2 billion, with the specific amount depending on the liquidity of the tokens held and the valuation of the equity stake in Solana Labs.

Conclusion

As of early 2026, Anatoly Yakovenko remains one of the core architects of the digital economy, with his net worth fluctuating alongside the maturation of the Solana ecosystem. Although the crash of the cryptocurrency market at the beginning of 2026 has reduced his wealth from its peak of several billion dollars, his financial situation remains robust, primarily due to his equity in Solana Labs and a series of early investment projects.

From a hardworking engineer at a networking company for a decade to a crypto billionaire who has built a blockchain capable of competing with Bitcoin and Ethereum, Anatoly Yakovenko's influence on the crypto industry is evident. Solana has evolved from an initial high-speed blockchain into a hub that integrates institutional finance, stablecoin payments, trading, and more, yet it seems that everything is just beginning.