Investment firm VanEck said on Thursday: For ~ Solana brush
-1.82%
– Listed index fund.
Many experts say the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is unlikely to approve the listing, as Solana’s native token has been declared a security in at least two lawsuits.
But Matt Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, said now is the right time to try.
“We believe the regulatory environment is changing,” Sigel told The Block in an interview. He pointed to recent bipartisan legislative developments, including the passage of the landmark FIT21 market rescue bill and how the SEC suddenly changed course and agreed to approve a spot ether ETF to support its position.
VanEck has been writing since last year that the Trump campaign would win reelection, which would likely ease the regulatory burden on financial companies given the former president’s embrace of cryptocurrencies. But Sigel said the SOL ETF is likely to be approved regardless of who wins in November.
Siegel said that “Gary Gensler (SEC Chairman) is likely to be fired,” either by the incoming Trump administration or by Biden as Treasury Secretary. When asked if Gensler has done the right thing when it comes to regulating cryptocurrencies, Siegel responded with a resounding “no.”
One of the reasons experts are skeptical that the Solana ETF will be approved anytime soon is because the cryptocurrency is not listed on a futures ETF. For example, Cube.Exchange CEO Bartosz Lipinski said, “It would be surprising if the SEC would allow these funds to come to market without futures. This appears to be the route for both BTC and ETH spot ETFs.”
But Siegel argued that this was not a prerequisite.
“Futures market requirements are Gensler’s psychopath,” the senior researcher said.
The SEC has often relied on futures markets to meet market surveillance requirements for listing certain exchange-traded products. Sigel noted that this is not the only way, citing information-sharing agreements between spot cryptocurrency exchanges and listed ETF markets pioneered by BlackRock’s IBIT Bitcoin ETF.
strategic move
But it was more than just regulatory optimism that convinced VanEck that the time was right to launch a new cryptocurrency-based ETF. It was also strategic. He said that if the SEC were to return to a norm of approving ETF applications as soon as they come in, rather than in a batch, as it did in January when 10 bitcoin ETFs were approved on the same day, VanEck would have wanted them approved first. For example, the firm was also the first to submit an Ethereum ETF proposal.
“The SEC department that’s processing the S-1 filings is not the same department that’s already approved the 19b-4 offerings from Cboe, NYSE Arca and Nasdaq,” Sigel said of the Ethereum ETF filing currently under consideration. “They can still do the right thing.”
Moreover, the company is enthusiastic about Solana. “We love the coin,” Sigel said, referencing a meme popularized by legendary retail trader Keith “Roaring Kitty” Gill. Sigel added that the network is roughly as decentralized as Ethereum, and that if one asset gets ETF approval, so will the other.
“During our due diligence, we found no evidence that there were any network participants with control over the chain,” he said. Sigel also said that the distribution of SOL tokens is unusually fair. This is because no entity controls more than 15% of the circulating supply.
“The SEC shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers,” he said.
Buyer wooing
Another consideration: Sigel said that given the network’s tremendous growth in recent months, VanEck can expect demand for Solana funds. But it’s not yet clear if that’s true.
In the past year, Solana has become one of the most widely used blockchains and a hub of developer activity (largely due to the rise of memecoin), but it is arguably not receiving as much institutional attention as Bitcoin or Ethereum. For example, Galaxy Digital recently announced that the ETH ETF Up to $7.5 billion inflows Within the first five months after launch, it is primarily driven by institutions and broker-dealers.
Jacob Martin of 2 Punks Capital might disagree. “We’re seeing more and more early-stage teams being open to SOL or building on it,” he said, referring to early-stage investors who don’t buy public liquidity tokens directly.
“The current path can be loosely defined as ‘launch, gain traction, get sufficiently diversified and then hope that the ETF further solidifies the asset as a commodity,’” Martin added. A SOL ETF launch “could be a market-leader,” he added. “It’s a way for teams further downstream to find comfort in the ecosystem.”
Likewise, industry Advocacy Group Digital Future Michelle Bond, founder and former congressional candidate, suspects there will be more demand for the SOL ETF than expected given the popularity of Bitcoin ETFs.
“Demand for exposure to digital assets as part of a balanced investment portfolio continues to grow, and the ETF will simplify custody and allow Solana exposure to be more seamlessly integrated into an individual’s investment portfolio,” Bond said. Bond said. “It is timely for the United States to approve (SOL ETF).”
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