DeFi Development Corp Raises Its CHAD Preferred Dividend to 14% to Grow a Solana Treasury

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• DeFi Development Corp is raising the annual dividend rate on its CHAD preferred stock by 100 basis points, from 13.00 percent to 14.00 percent, effective November 2, 2026
• The increase lifts the annual dividend per share from $1.30 to $1.40 on CHAD’s $10.00 stated amount, roughly a 7.7 percent increase in the dividend payment itself
• The company says its Solana treasury earns returns through staking and validator operations, and plans to use proceeds from future CHAD issuances to expand that treasury

DeFi Development Corp announced on October 15, 2026 that it is increasing the dividend rate on CHAD, its Variable Rate Series C Perpetual Preferred Stock, by 100 basis points, moving the annual rate from 13.00 percent to 14.00 percent effective November 2, 2026. The change raises CHAD’s annual dividend from $1.30 to $1.40 per share, calculated against the stock’s $10.00 stated amount, an increase of roughly 7.7 percent in the actual dividend payment investors receive.

CHAD pays its dividend on a cumulative basis, meaning any dividend period in which a payment is declared but not fully paid still accrues and must eventually be made up, and the company has structured it to be paid out on every business day when declared rather than on a traditional monthly or quarterly schedule. That daily-accrual structure is designed to appeal to income-oriented investors who want a steady, frequently paid cash stream rather than larger, less frequent dividend checks.

The company frames CHAD’s purpose explicitly around funding and growing its Solana treasury. DeFi Development Corp says its SOL holdings generate returns through staking and running validator operations on the Solana network, activities that earn rewards paid in additional SOL for helping secure and process transactions on the blockchain. The company plans to direct proceeds raised through future issuances of CHAD toward expanding that Solana treasury further, with the explicit goal of growing what the company calls “SOL per share,” a metric that tracks how much Solana backs each outstanding share of the company’s stock over time, similar in spirit to how some bitcoin treasury companies track “bitcoin per share.”

Chief Executive Officer Joseph Onorati characterized CHAD’s value proposition as compelling specifically because it combines double-digit dividend income with a cumulative structure that pays out on every business day a payment is declared. Onorati said the rate increase was intended to broaden investor participation in the security and to help build CHAD into what he called a leading digital credit instrument, positioning the preferred stock as a differentiated product within the broader landscape of crypto-treasury-linked securities.

By raising CHAD’s dividend rate, DeFi Development Corp is effectively offering investors a higher yield in exchange for capital it can then redeploy into growing its underlying Solana position, a financing approach that mirrors strategies used by several other publicly traded companies that have built their balance sheets around a specific cryptocurrency treasury. The announcement, filed with the SEC, did not disclose the company’s current total Solana holdings or specify the size of any future CHAD issuance.