First Bitcoin, then Ethereum, and now Solana. The crypto industry is flooding traditional markets with assets pegged to cryptocurrencies that mom-and-pop investors can buy up from their brokerage accounts. On Wednesday morning, the first Solana exchange-traded fund, or ETF, went live on Cboe BZX, a stock exchange based in Chicago.
Dubbed the REX-Osprey SOL and Staking ETF, the fund is available to investors who want exposure to Solana, one of the top cryptocurrencies whose market capitalization is about $81 billion, according to data from Binance. In addition to tracking the price of Solana, the fund, managed jointly by REX Financial and its sister firm Osprey Funds, also pays holders a variable monthly dividend whose current rate is 7.3%
The price of Solana jumped 2% after markets opened Wednesday to now around $151. The ETF has seen inflows of about $20 million before midday, Greg King, founder and CEO of REX Financial, told Fortune.
When they were first launched, cryptocurrency ETFs seemed exotic to many retail investors, but the successive debut of a Bitcoin, Ethereum, and now a Solana fund suggest the products are gaining a broader appeal.
The ETFs also represent an entry point for new crypto investors at a time when brokerages like Vanguard donât let their users plug into a crypto exchange and buy the newest, hottest token. The arrival of spot crypto ETFs, or traditional market wrappers around the current price of a cryptocurrency, allow traditional and institutional investors to allocate a portion of their portfolio to crypto.
For years, the Securities and Exchange Commission blocked the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S., even though similar products were available in Europe. The SEC worried that the crypto-tied assets would be prone to market manipulation. Grayscale, a crypto investment firm, battled the regulator in the courts, and, in October 2023, a judge said the SECâs rejections of Grayscaleâs application for a spot Bitcoin ETF were âarbitrary and capricious.â
In January 2024, a slew of spot Bitcoin ETFs went live, including an entry into the category from the asset management titan BlackRock. Since the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs, almost $50 billion have poured into the investment products, according to data from SoSoValue.
In July 2024, BlackRock and other issuers launched ETFs for Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. And then, other issuers filed ETF applications for a slew of other cryptocurrencies, including Solana.
âI frankly think it would have been more difficult with the previous administration,â said King, the CEO of REX Financial.
Now, amid a more friendly financial regime under President Donald Trump, analysts anticipate that the SEC will approve many of the applications to launch cryptocurrency-tied funds.
âWe expect a wave of new ETFs in this second half of 2025,â James Seyffart, a research analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said on X.Â
