Wealth Manager VanEck has expanded its crypto-related offerings by submitting the first-ever bid for a Solana (SOL) exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the U.S. According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday, this move led to an immediate 8% increase in SOL prices, as reported by CoinMarketCap.
The VanEck Solana Trust aims to track and reflect SOL prices. This effort marks VanEck’s deeper foray into crypto-backed investment vehicles. Similar to updates for spot Ethereum (ETH) ETFs, VanEck’s filing highlighted that staking would not be part of the Solana Trust. The SEC filing read, “Neither the Trust nor the Sponsor, the SOL Custodian, or any other person associated with the Trust will, directly or indirectly, engage in any action where any portion of the Trust’s SOL is used to earn staking rewards, to earn additional SOL or to generate income or other earnings.”
Matthew Sigel, in a statement about the application, challenged SEC’s indirect assertions and Michael Saylor’s view that SOL is an unregistered security. Sigel argued that Solana is a commodity like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
VanEck likely included specific language to comply with perceived SEC direction. The SEC currently leans toward classifying staking activities under federal securities laws. The filing comes ahead of anticipated approvals for spot Ether ETFs, following successful Bitcoin counterparts launched in January.
The application reaffirms comments from analysts and industry leaders like Solana co-founder Raj Gokal and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who both indicated that a SOL ETF was inevitable.
The news also reflects confidence from asset managers amid a shifting political climate in the U.S. ahead of the winter elections. Candidates on both sides have expressed some crypto-friendly rhetoric, with Donald Trump taking a more aggressive stance and Biden’s administration showing willingness to discuss digital asset regulatory policies.
