In this episode of the Sunny Ray Show, host Sunny Ray sits down with longtime friend Joseph Onorati, CEO of Nasdaq-listed DeFi Development Corp (DFDV), often called the MicroStrategy of Solana. Onorati traces his path from a childhood side hustle and playing Ultima Online, through studying economics and monetary theory, to running Cavirtex, Canada's first Bitcoin exchange, and later spending nearly eight years at Kraken, including as Chief Strategy Officer. He reflects on Kraken's staking program, stablecoin trading dominance, margin lending, and its recent Fed master account news. The conversation shifts to DFDV's mission of accumulating Solana per share and why volatility, not stability, drives capital formation for digital asset treasury companies. Onorati closes by unveiling Apex, an offshore, non genius act compliant, yield bearing stablecoin backed by variable rate perpetual preferred stock similar to MicroStrategy's Stretch, targeting roughly 13.5% yield through a two token model. The episode blends personal history, exchange building lessons, and a forward look at where treasury companies and stablecoins are heading.
DFDV CEO Joseph Onorati on Solana treasuries, Kraken's rise, and Apex, a new 13.5% yield stablecoin backed by perpetual preferred stock.
Can you give people a sentence or two on Apex and how big the idea is?
Apex, at apyx.fi, is an offshore stablecoin not available to US users and not compliant with the genius act. It's a yield bearing stable backed by variable rate perpetual preferred stock like MicroStrategy's Stretch. We expect the staked or locked portion to yield around 13.5% in a two token model, with a yield bearing token and a non-yield bearing payment stablecoin meant to be used as DeFi collateral.
What drew you to economics and shaped your thinking about money early on?
As a kid I sold chewing gum at school until the teachers shut my business down, which felt unfair. Later, playing Ultima Online as a teenager, I watched traders spontaneously switch which in-game asset they quoted prices in during hyperinflation, with no organizer, just bottoms up. That stuck with me, and in university an economics class helped me understand what I'd actually witnessed.
What was it like running Cavirtex, Canada's first Bitcoin exchange, back then?
We made ourselves available to people already interested in crypto through places like Bitcoin Talk, while others just wanted a safer way to transact than wiring money to Mt. Gox or trading on forums. We also built a merchant solution so businesses could accept Bitcoin in real life, pitched them on lower costs than credit cards, and outbound dialed merchants ourselves with a small sales team.
Looking back at nearly eight years at Kraken, what's a strategic decision you're proud to have been part of?
One was pushing for staking, now called Earn, letting Kraken pass through staking yield while still facilitating full liquidity for withdrawals, which was novel at the time. We also drove stablecoin adoption, pioneering stable to stable fee structures that gave Kraken something like 60% of global centralized exchange stablecoin volume, and built out Kraken's margin lending program, which required a lot of capital discipline to scale safely.
What does Kraken's new Fed master account news actually mean for the industry?
Kraken now has access to a Fed master account through its Wyoming SPDI special purpose depository institution license, and it looks like traditional banks are upset about it. The team has been working on this since around 2018. Because the SPDI is full reserve, Kraken can't lend against low collateral like traditional banks, so I don't see why it's risky, and it should open new payment rails and institutional products.
How did you land on building DFDV as a Solana treasury company rather than something else?
With Parker White and John Hahn, we saw Chokepoint 2 ending, public markets opening to crypto, and assets once treated as securities becoming clearer. Solana had been named in the SEC's Coinbase complaint, so we figured a MicroStrategy equivalent for Solana would emerge and decided to build it first. Parker had run Solana validators for years and we'd both been in Solana DeFi since mid-2021, so the user experience conviction was real.
Why do you see Solana's volatility as an advantage rather than a flaw for a treasury company?
Treasury companies raise their best, friendliest capital by selling common equity into the market via an ATM structure, and that requires trading volume. Nobody trades a stock that just sits still, so volatility attracts speculators and creates the volume needed to raise permanent capital. Saylor says volatility is vitality, and I think that holds true for how DATs actually fund their asset accumulation.
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