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Cathie Wood’s investment company is among the backers to lose out from the unravelling of a football business turned cryptocurrency hoarder, as shares plunge and insiders trade lawsuits.
ARK Invest and Abu Dhabi-based investor Pulsar Group last year led a $300mn preferred equity investment in Nasdaq-listed Brera Holdings, a holding company for stakes in low-level football clubs that pivoted to buying and hoarding the crypto token solana.
But shares of Brera — which rebranded as Solmate — have lost more than 90 per cent of their value since the fundraising, as the boom in so-called crypto treasury companies fizzles.
The company, which held stakes in football teams in Italy, North Macedonia, Mozambique and Mongolia, is one of hundreds that rushed to stockpile crypto tokens last year, in a bid to emulate the success of Michael Saylor’s Strategy, which surged after pivoting in 2020 to accumulating bitcoin. Wood, whose ARK is known for launching ETFs focused on speculative tech companies, called the crypto treasury craze a “revolution”.
Many crypto-hoarding companies have since gone into freefall as investors question their value and the wider crypto sector suffers a prolonged rout.
Solmate’s shares traded at $249 after the ARK and Pulsar investment, but are now hovering around $5. Solana has fallen 53 per cent over the past year.
Crypto venture capital firm and Solmate shareholder RockawayX filed a complaint in New York state court on Monday, accusing board members installed by Pulsar Group of seizing control of the company “immediately” after the investment and extracting value by self-dealing.
The lawsuit alleged that the board issued shares to two of its own members “in order to dramatically increase its voting stake and entrench itself against shareholder opposition”.
It also said that Wood’s ARK and other investors cannot sell their shares because Solmate failed to file an annual report with the regulator on time.
Solmate claimed in a statement that it was “engaged in a critical effort” to protect itself from a campaign by RockawayX and its chief executive “aimed at exploiting the company and its assets for personal gain”.
ARK declined to comment, while Pulsar did not respond to a request for comment.
Solmate had previously filed a lawsuit against RockawayX in a Delaware state court alleging the group made “false and misleading financial representations” concerning a potential transaction between the two.
Several Solmate executives and board members who joined after the pivot to crypto have departed in recent months. Arthur Laffer, the well-known economist, left the board, while the company’s chief executive Marco Santori resigned in April.
Laffer’s involvement had stoked Wood’s excitement for the project, the FT reported at the time of ARK’s equity investment.
Solmate initially began in Ireland as Brera, an owner of multiple small football clubs which went public on the Nasdaq in 2023. The firm was recently led by Daniel McClory, who also headed a US underwriter called Boustead Securities with a speciality in taking Chinese small-cap companies public.
Since its pivot to crypto, Solmate has unwound its football portfolio: its teams in Mongolia and Mozambique were disbanded and it sold its majority stake in second-tier Italian club Juve Stabia at the price of €1 plus liabilities in April after acquiring it roughly a year earlier. Solmate made a €378,000 net loss in 2025, according to a filing last week.
Wood was not the only big-name investor who piled into crypto treasury companies at the height of last year’s mania. Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund invested alongside ARK in Ethereum holder Bitmine Immersion Technologies, though both have since cut their stakes.
Famed stockpicker Bill Miller also invested in Bitmine, whose shares have halved this year. Strategy itself recently sold bitcoin to pay dividends to investors in a marked reversal of its founder’s philosophy.
Additional reporting by George Steer
