Anthony Scaramucci's 'Solana Rising' (Book Review)

Introduction

To those in the cryptosphere, Solana (SOL-USD) needs little introduction. According to CoinGecko, Solana has the seventh-largest market cap among cryptocurrencies, at $45 billion. Likewise, in the political and investment arenas, Anthony Scaramucci needs little introduction, either. Scaramucci had a brief stint as White House Communications Director during the first Trump Administration and is currently the founder and managing partner at SkyBridge Capital, an alternative asset firm. Combine Scaramucci and Solana, and what do you get? Scaramucci's new book, Solana Rising: Investing in the Fast Lane of Crypto.

Throughout the book, Scaramucci touts crypto with evangelical zeal, as he also did in his previous blockchain book, The Little Book of Bitcoin. If you're interested in Bitcoin (BTC-USD), The Little Book of Bitcoin is a good place to start. However, I digress. The purpose of this post is twofold. The first part will discuss Solana Rising. It's well-written and chock-full of information and statistics about crypto in general, including a history of Solana. Because the book was published in December of 2025, the information is new. The second part will evaluate Solana for investment purposes and touch on the battle between Solana and Ethereum (ETH-USD) for blockchain superiority in DeFi [Decentralized Finance]. 

Solana Rising

The book opens with Scaramucci's eureka moment with Solana. It occurred at a private dinner after an investment conference in September 2021. The dinner guests included investing heavyweights Steve Cohen of S.A.C. Capital, Dan Loeb of Third Point, and Pantera's Dan Morehead. They were there to hear the wunderkind of the digerati, Sam Bankman-Fried [SBF], the "Warren Buffett of Bitcoin". At the time, Bankman-Fried was the guiding light of crypto and worth over $22 billion. He went from being heavily involved in 2022's World Economic Forum in Davos to serving 25 years in stir beginning in 2023 for fraud. People lost fortunes because of Bankman-Fried. Scaramucci was no exception.

That said, Bankman-Fried was a crypto savant, and after the meeting, Scaramucci began investing in Solana because SBF was pounding the table on the blockchain. SkyBridge Capital had previously made a fortune in Bitcoin and wanted to try to catch lightning in a bottle again in the DeFi arena. I was initially put off by the amount of time Scaramucci spent on SBF, but he's integral to the story. Later in the book, Scaramucci talks about losing money and losing face because of SBF. So what did Sam Bankman-Fried see in Solana that caught Scaramucci's attention and wallet? At the time, Solana was projected to be an Ethereum killer.

Ethereum and Solana are programmable blockchains that enable users to: "borrow, lend, trade, or earn interest on their cryptocurrency, all outside the traditional banks and financial intermediaries that comprise the TradFi [Traditional Finance] landscape." The knock on Ethereum at the time was that it was slow, expensive, and didn't process multiple transactions simultaneously. Solana founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal vowed to build a decentralized NASDAQ (NDAQ) on the blockchain, and so they did. Much faster and less expensive than Ethereum, too. If you trade utilizing a crypto exchange on the Solana blockchain, "it was like driving an F1 race car. Ethereum's DeFi trading platforms?  That was like driving a Porsche in rush hour. There was no comparison." Or so Scaramucci claims. Fast forward three years, and Ethereum remains the number two cryptocurrency in market cap at a whopping $238 billion. Almost five times larger than the upstart Solana.

                                        (click to enlarge) 

                                          Source: Google Gemini 

The entire book does a great job of explaining the principles of cryptocurrency in layman's terms. The middle chapters focus on tokenization, meme coins, and use cases with Solana. Scaramucci instructs readers on how to buy Solana using crypto wallets or through traditional online brokers such as Robinhood (HOOD) and Interactive Brokers (IBKR). The new phenomenon of spot-priced Solana ETFs was not available at the time of publication, but they are now. Fidelity, Bitwise, and Grayscale all offer ETFs specializing in Solana as of this writing. Scaramucci glosses over the difficulty of utilizing a crypto wallet. He suggests that using a crypto wallet is plug-and-play. My experience is that they are difficult to use and can easily be hacked. When I invest in crypto, I prefer the ETFs. 

When Scaramucci gets into the nitty-gritty about Solana, one use case he highlighted is BlackRock's (BLK) blockchain money market token, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL-USD). I found this interesting, but it is better suited for hedge funds and investment bankers. The author also recommends that investors allocate 10% of their portfolios to crypto because, and I paraphrase, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity only happens once-in-a-lifetime. That's far more than anyone should invest in a volatile, nascent investment. It is important to note when reading this book that Scaramucci is a great salesman and has a vested interest in individuals buying Solana tokens.

Although the last four chapters of the book are informative, Scaramucci let me down by spending too much time discussing his old boss, Donald Trump. I would have preferred more information on Solana's battle royale with Ethereum. Instead, an entire chapter is dedicated to the inaugural Crypto Ball. Held two days before President Trump took office for his second term, this is where the Trump Meme Coin ($TRUMP-USD) was introduced to the world. A lot of crypto-bros and political insiders rubbed elbows while wearing red baseball caps with "MAKE BITCOIN GREAT AGAIN" embossed on the front of the cap. Another chapter is dedicated to the First Lady's official Melania Meme Coin ($MELANIA-USD). Although it is important that the Solana network didn't crash during this high-usage period, it was a missed opportunity for Scaramucci. 

Solana vs Ethereum

Metric	Solana (SOL)	Ethereum (ETH)
Current Price	~$85.30 - $88.89	~$1,900 - $1,980
Developer Activity	~2,500 - 3,000+ active devs	~5,000 - 6,000+ active devs
Monthly Revenue	$245 Million (Jan 2026)	$89 Million (Jan 2026)
Daily Active Addresses	~2.17 Million	~682,000
Total Value Locked	~$6.4 Billion	~$52.4 Billion ($65B+ incl. L2s)
DEX Trading Volume	~$108 Billion (last 30 days)	~$63.7 Billion (last 30 days)

Some notes on the table: It was generated using Google Gemini. DEX trading volume is peer-to-peer swapping of cryptocurrencies. According to Investopedia, "Total Value Locked in crypto measures the total USD value of assets deposited in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, such as lending, staking, and liquidity pools." 

Solana is much faster than Ethereum, but less secure, which is why large financial institutions prefer Ethereum. In early 2026, the story has shifted from Solana being a potential threat to Solana being a dominant execution layer that has taken significant market share from Ethereum, particularly in retail sectors such as gaming. This is a fluid situation. One could leapfrog the other. There's room for both. Just like Coke (KO) and Pepsi (PEP) compete in the same markets.

Conclusion

We're at the dawn of crypto and asset tokenization. Depending on your source, the total addressable market for asset tokenization is projected to grow from roughly $250 billion today to $20-30 trillion by 2030. It's a large market to capture, and Solana is quickly taking pole position. With software stocks in free fall, digital assets experiencing Crypto Winter, and Operation Epic Fury, Solana could be under pressure for a while. It's difficult to say how long this will go on for, but I consider Solana a good bet if you can handle the volatility. If you have a long-term time horizon, it should make you money.  As far as Solana Rising goes, it is well worth the read if you're thinking about taking a position in Solana or crypto in general.    

 

Chainlink: Now is the Time to Accumulate

This past month, I've been accumulating The Grayscale Chainlink Trust ETF (GLNK), a spot price exchange-traded fund that tracks crypto oracle Chainlink (LINK-USD). In the high-risk, high-reward facet of investing, there's no more prominent and prevalent tranche currently than cryptocurrency. In the past four months, Bitcoin (BTC-USD), the poster child of digital assets, has been cut in half, taking most members of the asset class down in sympathy. There's a strong correlation in the crypto technology subsector, and as a result, so goes Bitcoin, so go its well renown bretheren such as Ethereum (ETH-USD),  Solana (SOL-USD), and Chainlink.

                                                   (click to enlarge)

                                         Source: Google Gemini

I don't believe this will be a permanent situation because, as the crypto industry matures and becomes more mainstream, each individual crypto will be judged on earnings, revenues, and financial expectations. The way things stand now, it's in the realm of daytraders relying on article headlines, technical analysis, and social media posts. In other words, to use an old Wall Street expression, they are throwing away the baby with the bathwater. With the prospect of Bitcoin falling further, you are probably asking yourself, why crypto? Why Chainlink? Why The Grayscale Chainlink Trust ETF? I will get to all three questions in chronological order.

Crypto is a well-known asset class to investors. Prone to boom/bust cycles, it's still in its tween stage. I'm a believer that blockchain, the underlying technology of crypto, will be the backbone of the Internet as more industries digitize [tokenize] their assets, particularly in finance. BlackRock (BLK), JP Morgan (JPM), and Fidelity are all leading the way. Others are following quickly. It's only going to be another few years before everything in finance is on the blockchain and tokenized. Bitcoin will surely be a beneficiary in all this, but I don't know how to evaluate Bitcoin. Plus, with the advent of stablecoins such as Tether (USDT-USD) and Circle (CRCL), I'm not convinced that Bitcoin will be the go-to form of monetary exchange in the United States, as the Bitcoin enthusiasts claim. It will do well in third-world countries with unstable currencies and high inflation, but not in the U.S. of A. I stay away from it. 

Chainlink is a crypto oracle, which means it connects blockchains to outside data sources. It's a platform. Just as Windows (MSFT) is for the personal computer, AWS (AMZN) is for cloud computing, and NVIDIA (NVDA) is for Artificial Intelligence, Chainlink does the same for Online Finance. It has a lot of potential, but the operative word is potential. It's not there yet, but it has a great head start.

According to the Chainlink website, as of December 2025, over $27 trillion in transactions have been done utilizing the company's service since 2022. In the overall scheme of things, this is a pittance when compared to the totality of the worldwide financial market. There's room to grow. It has revenues, too. DefiLlama states that the company has $53 million in sales with a market cap just under $6 billion and is selling at $8/token. If it seems expensive based on traditional fundamental investing metrics, it is. But you're paying for the future. It's the dominant oracle in decentralized finance, commanding close to 70% market share. It also has 84% market share on Ethereum, the leading blockchain in defi.

The company has excellent partnerships. The Mastercard (MA) crypto initiative runs on Chainlink. JP Morgan's Kinexys utilizes Chainlink technology. UBS (UBS) and ICE [Inter Continental Exchange] are also in the portfolio. These are just a few of the many partnerships Chainlink administers, and although impressive, the one I believe is the most important is the relationship with SWIFT. SWIFT [Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications] is a secure messaging network that initiates international payments such as wire transfers. Chainlink is becoming the de facto industry standard for all financial transactions. Although the token price is very volatile and under extreme pressure, I believe this is  a good time to accumulate it if you're a patient investor. NVIDIA did nothing from 2002-2012 until it started to run. I'm betting that Chainlink will have a similar story. I'm not suggesting that Chainlink will have the prolific gains of NVIDIA, but it could be a ten-bagger in the not-so-distant future. 

                                                (click to enlarge)

                                            Source: Google Gemini 

One billion Chainlink tokens have been created, with 700 million in circulation. A caveat here is that if more tokens are released on the open market, it may cause the price of Chainlink to drop. Plus, there's always the threat of a sell-off in Bitcoin lurking. The catalyst needed to get all cryptocurrencies back in gear is the passage of the Clarity Act. The Clarity Act is U.S. legislation that aims to introduce regulation to the crypto industry and would usher in institutional interaction with blockchains. It would also strengthen consumer protection. The Clarity Act passed in the House but needs to pass in the Senate. Originally scheduled to go to vote in January of 2026, it has been delayed because some crypto industry participants did not like the parameters of the Act. These industry participants are primarily crypto purists, most notably Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase (COIN). With additional negotiations, the Clarity Act will most likely be passed for the benefit of both sides. 

As mentioned previously, while the price of Chainlink is down, I'm accumulating shares of GLNK. Previously, I had a Coinbase account, but I was uncomfortable with having to use an authenticator to access my assets, was tired of all the phishing scams, and was petrified of being hacked. With the introduction of spot-price ETFs that I can purchase through my broker, I jumped back into the fray because I'm a big believer in Chainlink. Although there are spot-price ETFs for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, I'm choosing a utility token in Chainlink to invest in. A note of caution on GLNK. It is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, and is not subject to the same regulations and protections as 40 Act registered ETFs and mutual funds. This may change with the passing of the Clarity Act. 

Full disclosure, I primarily invest in S&P 500 Index Funds with minimal expense ratios, but place a small percentage of my portfolio into equities or ETFs that I believe have a future. Chainlink is my current wager. Both LINK and GLNK are trading under $10 currently, and are going lower. It's always a dangerous sign when an investment goes below the $10 mark. So buyer beware and always use limit orders. Palantir (PLTR) advanced from $7/share to $220/share in two years. That's a nice gain. Reddit's (RDDT) Wall Street Bets, YouTube (GOOGL), and TikTok influencers, and plain old algos gone wild can propel an inexpensive investment higher in short time frames. I think that's where Chainlink is going in the next few years, and I'm willing to take my chances. 

Crypto Investing For Seniors

Cryptocurrency burst into the mainstream in 2021 as Millennial and Gen-Z investors bid prices of digital currencies to stratospheric levels. Led by Bitcoin, the granddaddy of all crypto, fortunes were made overnight as the thought of get rich quick schemes invaded the consciousness and sensibilities of young investors worldwide. That euphoria lasted a scant year as prices plummeted when Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested for fraud and his cryptocurrency exchange FTX declared bankruptcy. This caused a run on the exchange which in turn ignited a cascading downturn in crypto prices globally. It was like the 2000's DOTCOM implosion redux and spawned a "crypto winter" where prices have languished the past few years for the majority of digital assets. 

So why should you have any interest in crypto, either as general knowledge or as an investment? Because blockchain, the underlying technology of crypto, has ushered in a new generation of the Internet known as Web 3.0. The first generation of the World Wide Web was stagnant consisting of text, hypertext links and photos. The second iteration of cyberspace included social media, video, and online shopping and banking. Web 3.0 is decentralized, eliminating the middleman with machine learning and smart contracts on a blockchain platform. Blockchain technology is running in the background, so you don't know it's there, but it's here already and it's here to stay. 

As an example, California's Department of Motor Vehicles recently put 42 million car titles on a blockchain to fight fraud. In addition, the banking industry is beginning to tokenize assets. Tokenization is when you digitize sensitive information such as social security numbers and account information to be placed on a blockchain. Lastly is the porn industry which now accepts crypto payments. Finance and pornography are usually ahead of the curve in adopting new technologies. Mainstream adoption is soon to follow.

So what is this blockchain? Blockchain is a decentralized, distributed database that is used to record transactions in an immutable, transparent fashion. Immutable means that it can't be changed over time without alerting the network which makes it more secure and eliminates fraud. The two largest Blockchains by market cap are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin can be described as a commodity much like digital gold, an innovative payment network without the intermediary of a bank. Ethereum is a blockchain used for Decentralized Applications and Smart Contracts. Decentralized Applications run on a peer-to-peer network which is what blockchain is, as opposed to a single computer. Smart Contracts are digital covenants that execute on the blockchain when predetermined conditions are met. 

As an end user, you may not care about the technological minutia of this next generation Internet, but as an investor, the consensus fifty percent compound annual growth rate for blockchain until 2032 will get your attention. Programmers are flocking to blockchain  to try and cash in on the rush to become the next crypto multimillionaire. There are about 9,000 crypto "projects" that you can invest in if you belong to a crypto exchange. Except for a handful of companies, the majority of these bootstrap projects are speculative at best. 

I tend to be a conservative investor, especially at an advanced age, and primarily invest in S&P 500 index funds. That said, I relegate a small percentage of my portfolio to riskier assets and am a former account holder at Coinbase, a major crypto exchange. I do not recommend using a crypto exchange unless you understand you are not investing, but gambling when you buy small cap crypto. 

If you're considering an exchange, here are some of the shortcomings. First, they're not easy to use. Coinbase is the most user-friendly of the exchanges and it's far from plug-n-play. Secondly, crypto on an exchange is not insured such as FDIC with a bank account or SIPC with a stock broker. Third, Customer Service is notoriously bad if it even exists. Lastly, you have to worry about getting hacked. I'm a Reddit enthusiast and have read countless posts of people losing their crypto through hacking or being lost in transfer. Although I stored my crypto in a secured digital vault on Coinbase, the thought of losing everything from hacking was always in the back of my mind. Not conducive for a good night's sleep. 

Although investing with an exchange is difficult and dangerous, the Securities and Exchange Commission has recently approved new financial products that make investing in some cryptocurrencies safe and easy. Gary Gensler, Chairperson of the SEC and former professor of blockchain and digital currencies at MIT, ushered in a new era for crypto investors with the approval of spot price exchange traded funds for both Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

These new financial instruments are  held in a stock brokerage account and protected by SIPC. Although these ETFs trade only during market hours, plus the pre and post market, their net asset values increase and decrease 24/7 with the correlated crypto.. If Bitcoin goes up 5% during a 24 hour period, the corresponding ETF will also rise the same amount and this holds true for the downside, too. They don't necessarily go lock step with each other during trading hours, but they're very close. If the New York Stock Exchange begins trading nights and weekends, you'll be able to liquidate your positions or purchase more shares just as if you were on a crypto exchange. In any event, your assets are much more protected with these instruments and you're also only investing in crypto "blue chips". 

Many companies have issued spot price ETFs for Bitcoin and Ethereum, but there are only two I feel comfortable investing with, Blackrock with their iShare funds and Fidelity. These two White Shoe firms have long track records of excellence. There are a few companies with similar offerings with lower expense ratios, but they aren't as established as Blackrock and Fidelity. Both organizations spot price instruments have expense ratios of about 0.25%, or twenty-five basis points. This means for every $10,000 invested, you'll be charged $25 per year. Very reasonable. The Blackrock products are iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA). Fidelity has Fidelity Wise Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH). If you can stomach the volatility of the crypto market, these ETFs are the way to go.

If you wish to dabble in crypto other than Bitcoin or Ethereum, you're very limited unless you go with a crypto exchange. One alternative option is to open a Robinhood account. The fairly new discount broker enables users to invest in fifteen popular cryptocurrencies such as Avalanche, Chainlink and Dogecoin along with Bitcoin and Ethereum. Although Robinhood was instrumental in ushering in  the commission-free phenomenon in discount brokerage houses, it's still a young company with growing pains. Buyer beware. Another option tentative crypto investors have is to utilize Exchange Traded Notes which Grayscale Investments sells. I don't endorse these either. Although Exchange Traded Notes trade much the same as Exchange Traded  Funds, they're not spot priced, they trade based on futures contracts, otherwise known as derivatives. Warren Buffett famously said derivatives are weapons of mass destruction. That's good enough advice for me. I'd stay away. 

I'm a firm believer that whatever the administration is in the White House next year, government policies about cryptocurrency will be much more favorable for the industry. Additional spot price ETFs will be introduced in the not so distant future if my hunch is right. We're in the beginning stages of a new technology era. It's like back in the day when we were listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Steely Dan and then Blondie and the B52's erupted onto the scene. A new generation ensued. We're at that juncture now. Invest carefully and always use limit orders.