During a recent interview, the head of digital asset research at VanEck, Matthew Sigel, stated that the approval of a crypto ETF on Solana in the USA would be inevitable.
At the end of June VanEck was one of the ETF managers to have submitted a formal request to the US SEC to issue an ETF on SL spot on US exchanges.
VanEck: the precedent in Brazil of the ETF on the crypto Solana
The reasoning of Sigel starts from what has recently happened in Brazil.
In fact, a few days ago the Brazilian equivalent of the SEC, the CVM, approved the launch on Brazilian stock exchanges of spot ETFs on Solana, after previously approving those on Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Sigel has defined Brazil as a long-time pioneer in digital assets, so much so that it has, for example, approved a BTC spot ETF well in advance.
This approval, according to the head of digital asset research at VanEck, would indicate that the U.S. counterpart should be ready to do the same.
However, from his words also emerges the possible need, on the part of the US regulator, for a regulatory, or in any case political, intervention to achieve final approval in the USA, but with the presidential elections in November this turning point could then arrive, according to Sigel.
The price of SOL
Note that the price of SOL did not react to this news.
SOL, the native cryptocurrency of Solana, has indeed gained 2% in the last 24 hours, but in line with the price gain of Bitcoin, and significantly less than BNB and ETH.
Taking 2024 as a reference, so far SOL is at +44%, against BTC’s +40% and BNB’s +66%. Ethereum performs worse with a meager +16%, but this could be due to internal reasons.
The fact is that Solana from this point of view grew especially last year, and this year, after the peak in March, has pulled back a bit.
Moreover, the approval of ETFs is not at all guaranteed, and given what happened between July and August to the price of Ethereum, it is not certain that the effect will be positive in the medium/short term.
The bottom of the bear-market of 2022 for the price of SOL was reached in December, when it fell below $10.
In September 2023 the price had risen to $19, with a +100% that had allowed it to recover part of what it had lost with the collapse of FTX in November of the previous year.
Starting from October, however, a rally was triggered that brought the price of Solana above $120 before the end of the year, and then in 2024 even to almost $200.
After that peak in March, a long period of lateralization began, which is still ongoing, during which the price has done nothing but oscillate within a range between 130$ and 180$, with rare and brief exceptions above and below.
The next crypto ETF
After the landing on the US stock exchanges of crypto ETFs on Bitcoin and Ethereum, in theory, the next ones to be approved should be precisely those on Solana.
Excluding for obvious reasons the stablecoin, it seems rather unlikely that the SEC could approve BNB ETFs shortly, given the problems Binance has had with US authorities. Sooner or later they might be approved, but it will presumably take a little longer.
The next ones, however, could be those on XRP, given that two courts have ruled that it cannot be considered a security, and since Ripple’s legal issues are now concluded.
As of today, however, it appears that no ETF manager has yet filed a request with the SEC to issue an ETF on XRP spot on the US exchanges.
Given the legal problems that Telegram has had over the years with the SEC regarding its crypto project, an ETF on TON does not seem likely for now. On the other hand, there does not seem to be any interest in ETFs on Dogecoin, Cardano, Tron, and Avalanche in the USA at the moment.
VanEck: the problem with the approval of the crypto ETF on Solana
The main obstacle to the launch of crypto ETF on traditional markets is the costs.
In the case of the Bitcoin ETF, the costs have been widely covered by the revenues, so much so that the managers are making a bull of a deal with this derivative product.
Already regarding Ethereum, it is not yet clear if and how much they are earning, but it seems that there are gains, although lower than those for Bitcoin.
The fact is that the issuance and management costs of an ETF tend to be somewhat always the same, regardless of the success of the product. Therefore, if an ETF once launched on the market does not produce sufficient income for its manager, it risks going into loss.
All this greatly discourages the issuance of new crypto ETFs with a low probability of success, especially in the USA where the issuance and management costs seem to be particularly high.
It is therefore not surprising that for now, after Bitcoin and Ethereum, only on Solana have requests been submitted to the SEC for the issuance of spot ETFs on US exchanges.
The trading volumes indicate that Bitcoin dominates unchallenged among the true cryptocurrencies, excluding therefore the stablecoins, followed relatively closely only by Ethereum. All other cryptocurrencies have still very low trading volumes, with only Solana having slightly more than the others.
At this point, it seems unlikely that anyone will request to issue other crypto ETFs in the USA before seeing if those on Solana will actually prove to be a success or not.
