Hong Kong Adds Solana Company to Strategic Cohort of 18 Firms
Key Facts
Solana Company said on October 22, 2026, that it had been designated a "Strategic Enterprise" by the Hong Kong government’s Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises. The announcement coincided with a government ceremony to sign up a new cohort of 18 companies to the OASES program. The company is part of the program’s seventh cohort of institutions attracted to the city. The decision applies to Solana Company, a Nasdaq-listed company trading under the ticker HSDT, and does not mean the Solana network itself was selected as a government partner. Nor does it give the company ownership of the network, according to details in the announcement.
Solana Company said it was the only blockchain infrastructure enterprise included in the program during 2026. The designation places it among companies Hong Kong is seeking to attract, while the company’s announced plans focus on building an operational presence in the city and region. It said the move is linked to Hong Kong’s digital-asset initiatives. These include the stablecoin law and the Monetary Authority’s Ensemble project, which focuses on tokenization. The company statement did not say the government had selected a group of infrastructure providers as part of the move.
The company has established an office in Hong Kong, which it said would serve as its headquarters and the base for its executive team to manage Asia-Pacific operations. Chairman and Chief Executive Joseph Chee said the region was "central to our strategy" and that the city would be the base from which the company advises institutions and builds infrastructure across the region. The office gives the company a location from which to manage its regional operations under its announced plan. The statement did not provide details on the team’s size or the scope of services the company would begin offering from the city. It also did not set a timeline for starting those operations.
Under its Pacific Backbone initiative, the company plans to establish operations in Hong Kong to validate network transactions. The move is part of its announced operating plan, alongside setting up the regional office. The company did not specify when validation operations would begin or the scale it was targeting. It gave no details on locations or resources allocated to those operations. The announced plan therefore remains tied to establishing activity in the city, with no execution timetable published so far.
The new cohort brought the total number of institutions attracted by the OASES program to 142, according to the Hong Kong government. The government says the first six cohorts exceeded investment expectations by 30% and job-creation expectations by 34%. Those cohorts also used more than 2.8 million square feet of commercial and industrial space. These indicators relate to the performance of the program’s first six cohorts and are not estimates specific to Solana Company’s investment or jobs. The announcement did not provide separate figures for the company’s expected economic impact.
Initial projects in the new cohort span financial technology, clinical research, precious-metals services, advanced manufacturing and embodied-robot marketing, according to the head of OASES. The range places Solana Company’s addition within a cohort covering multiple sectors, rather than a government announcement limited to blockchain companies. On the regulatory front, Hong Kong’s stablecoin law took effect on August 1, 2025, establishing a licensing regime for issuers of regulated stablecoins. The Monetary Authority said licensed issuers intend to complete the necessary preparations and launch their businesses in the coming months. This is concurrent with the plans Solana Company announced to expand its operations in the city.
In the market, Solana Company shares rose 1.29% in the context of the October 22 announcement of its designation as a strategic enterprise in Hong Kong, according to a report published by Investing.com citing Reuters. The figure relates to the company’s shares, listed under the ticker HSDT, not the price of Solana’s cryptocurrency. The government announcement and the company statement included no further details on the share move. The next announced operational step remains setting up validation operations under the Pacific Backbone initiative. The company did not specify when they would begin.