CoinJek reported:
On the evening of the 27th, Beijing time, news broke that VanEck had submitted an application for a Solana ETF, which immediately ignited the token market in the Solana ecosystem. The price of SOL briefly exceeded 150 USDT, and top tokens in the ecosystem such as WIF and RAY rose more than 10% within an hour.
Shortly after, Matthew Sigel, the Director of Digital Asset Research at VanEck, confirmed the news on the X platform. VanEck has applied for a Solana ETF with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The new fund is called VanEck Solana Trust, and it is the first Solana ETF to be applied for in the United States.
When asked about the reason for applying for a Solana ETF, Matthew stated, “Solana is a competitor to Ethereum and can handle transactions such as payments, trades, games, and social interactions. The Solana blockchain operates as a single global state machine without the need for sharding or Layer 2, providing a better user experience. We believe that the combination of high throughput, low fees, strong security, and a vibrant community makes Solana an attractive choice for ETFs, providing investors with a versatile and innovative open-source ecosystem.”
While this is a significant milestone in Solana’s development history, the approval process is still distant in terms of time and procedure.
Evgeny Gaevoy, the founder of Wintermute, poured cold water on the situation, stating, “The possibility of SOL ETF being approved this year is almost zero. It is foolish to assume that this would be a priority for the Trump administration. Once you see the inflow of funds into ETH ETFs, you will understand that even if SOL ETF is approved, the inflow of funds will be even less.” Evgeny added that Wintermute is a long-term supporter of SOL and ETH but exaggeration should be avoided, and a realistic approach is better. The adoption of cryptocurrencies takes time.
James Seyffart, a Bloomberg analyst who received much attention for his Bitcoin ETF application, also stated that if the White House changes its government and the SEC completes personnel changes, the relevant applications may be launched at some point in 2025, but it may not happen. James emphasized that after VanEck submitted the first SOL ETF in the United States, it is important to focus on whether other issuers will follow suit.
Looking back at VanEck and ETFs, as early as 2013, the U.S. SEC received the first Bitcoin ETF application, but there were no further developments at the time due to the immature market. In 2018, the Bitcoin ETF application reached its first peak, and VanEck was one of the pioneers. VanEck and SolidX collaborated to apply for a Bitcoin ETF, but it was rejected on February 27, 2019. In October 2021, ProShares’ Bitcoin futures ETF was approved and began trading, becoming the first approved Bitcoin-related ETF in the United States. In the same month, VanEck’s Bitcoin futures ETF was approved. However, its Bitcoin spot ETF was rejected the following month, and the Bitcoin spot ETF was not approved until three years later, in January of this year.
The path to the birth of a Bitcoin ETF has been arduous, and each significant progress requires yearly advancement. The dawn of a Solana ETF is just beginning, but the path to approval is still distant.
The question of whether Ethereum belongs to commodities or securities has been a key reason why Ethereum spot ETFs are considered difficult to approve. The 19b-4 filing for the Ethereum spot ETF in May was able to pass because all the applying institutions modified the terms to ensure that ETH would not involve interest-bearing operations. In addition, the U.S. SEC announced the end of its investigation into Ethereum 2.0 on June 18, which is undoubtedly a milestone victory and once again sends a positive signal to the outside world. The future of tokens that were once considered securities may now be recognized as commodities.
Although the commodity and security attributes of other cryptocurrencies are still pending, which is a significant factor hindering the approval of ETFs, it does not prevent top institutions like VanEck from making early applications.
In fact, Matthew Sigel, the Director of Digital Asset Research at VanEck, expressed his views on this matter in his post. He said, “Why do we believe SOL is a commodity like BTC and ETH? We believe that the native token SOL has similar functions to other digital commodities, used for paying transaction fees and computational services on the blockchain. Like ETH on Ethereum, SOL can be traded on digital asset platforms or used for peer-to-peer transactions. The decentralized nature, high usability, and economic feasibility of SOL align with the characteristics of other mature digital commodities, which further strengthens our belief that SOL could become a valuable commodity.”
However, this is only VanEck’s perspective, and whether the SEC will approve a spot ETF for SOL in the future remains to be seen.
While the approval of a Solana ETF is still a long way off based on the current market situation, the crypto market relies more on speculative expectations and does not need to wait for news to be confirmed before starting to rise. Every significant development has the potential to drive the rise of Solana ecosystem tokens. Of course, in this process, there will be significant market fluctuations and frequent ups and downs. Odaily reminds investors to be cautious and use leverage carefully.
