21Shares filed an S-1 application with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 28 for a physical Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF). The fund will be called the 21Shares Core Solana ETF. This is the second application the SEC has received for a physical SOL ETF, following VanEck’s filing on June 27.
The proposed ETF will be traded on the Cboe BZX Exchange. Coinbase will act as custodian for the fund’s privately secured Solana (SOL) holdings. The fund’s assets are stored in a separate wallet on the Solana blockchain.
The fund does not participate in SOL verification or staking. The intraday value of a stock is calculated every 15 seconds. The value of SOL in a fund is determined daily at 4:00 PM ETC (09:00 PM UTC).
21Shares is a pioneer in cryptocurrency ETFs.
21Shares is a cryptocurrency-based financial technology company based in Zurich, Switzerland. The company is already working with ARK Invest to offer future Ether (ETH) and spot and future Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs in the US. Additionally, 21Shares and ARK Invest offer ETFs that invest in BTC and ETH futures and public stocks of companies engaged in the blockchain industry and digital economy.
Related: State Street Teams Up with Galaxy, Aims for New ETF Beyond Bitcoin
The price of SOL jumped from $139 to $150 following the recent news of the VanEck filing. According to CoinMarketCap, it was trading at $141 at 12 PM ET.
21Shares ETF has a complicated history
21Shares applied for a spot ETH ETF called 21Shares Core Ethereum ETF on May 31 after ARK Invest ended its partnership with the company on that application. The ARK 21Shares Spot ETH ETF 19b-4 application was approved by the SEC on May 23. The SEC approves the S-1 filing separately after the 19b-4 filing. The partners originally planned to offer an ETH ETF with staking, but changed their plans.
SOL is the 5th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The Solana blockchain has been criticized for frequent outages and slow processing during congestion.
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