Key facts: This company was the first to file an application to launch a solana ETF. For the US Securities and Exchange Commission, SOL is a security. The head of digital asset research at VanEck, Matthew Sigel, said that the approval of a solana (SOL) exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States “will have a major impact on the cryptocurrency market.” As BitcoinDynamic already reported, the investment firm was the first to file an S-1 form with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). to launch an ETF based on spot SOL. A few days later, 21Shares followed suit. In an interview with the Thinking Crypto Podcast site, Sigel highlighted the research that VanEck conducted to understand the characteristics of the Solana network and the usefulness of this asset. “When we examine the language around decentralization and the characteristics of the blockchain, we notice that the ether (ETH) and SOL assets are fundamentally the same right now,” he said. In that sense, the specialist explained that “no entity controls more than 20% of SOL, so they cannot stop the network unilaterally.” This is an important fact, since If there was a large concentration of the SOL supply in a few handsit is possible to carry out manipulations if they wanted to. However, it is worth remembering that their Solana suffered network interruptions on more than one occasion. These outages affected users. On the other hand, Sigel believed that it is a unique asset and It is a commodity that provides access to a major open source application store. such as wallets and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. He also said that ETFs based on this asset “will eventually be approved by regulatory bodies” although he clarified:
“A solana ETF could be approved, but with a different SEC chairman.” Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck.
These statements refer to the fact that the president of the regulatory body, Gary Gensler, has expressed on several occasions that “anything that is not bitcoin falls under the control of the SEC.” Gensler also maintains that the actions of promoters of cryptocurrencies that emerged after bitcoin (BTC) are similar to those of businessmen who benefit from the growth of their companies' shares. With the exception of BTC and ETH, The rest of the digital assets are considered securities and commodities. In its legal filing against Binance, The SEC claimed that Solana's altcoin is an unregistered security and argued that there is sufficient evidence to prove that SOL is a stock of Solana Labsthe organization that builds products and tools to expand the ecosystem of that network. “Since initial sales in September 2020, SOL is reasonably considered an investment and its holders expect to benefit from Solana Labs’ efforts to grow the Solana protocol, which in turn would increase the demand and value of SOL,” the document clarifies. This organization is days away from approving the launch of ETFs based on this ETH, the digital currency of the Ethereum ecosystem. This attitude suggests a relaxation of its position About cryptocurrencies. That's why Sigel, on the day VanEck announced its filing with the SEC, argument that SOL works the same as ETH“It is used to pay transaction fees and services. Like ether on the Ethereum network, SOL can be traded on digital asset platforms or used in peer-to-peer transactions,” he stressed.
Authorization to list SOL ETFs is requested
This week, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOE) asked the SEC for permission to list the postponed VanEck and 21Shares exchange-traded funds via 19b-4 filings. These documents are important because They set a 240-day window for the regulatory body to approve or not these ETFsIn this context, Eric Balchunas, an analyst at the Bloomberg news agency, explained that the limit is March 2025 and mentioned an event that could be decisive for the future of solana ETFs: The elections in the United States, which so far have as protagonists: Joe Biden and Donald Trump. “If Biden wins, they probably won't have a chance to exist. If Trump wins, anything is possible,” Balchunas said. It is worth noting that since the campaign began, the former president and current candidate for the Republican Party has expressed in favor of the cryptocurrency industry. He also assured that, if he is elected again, he will stop the hostility against digital assets from the head of the SEC. “Gensler is very much against it, the Democrats are very much against it. But I am fine with cryptocurrencies. And if you are in favor of them, it would be best for you to vote for Trump,” he promised.