The United States’ first Solana staking exchange-traded fund (ETF) ended its debut trading day with $12 million in inflows — a positive sign for crypto staking-enabled ETFs.
The REX-Osprey Solana Staking ETF debuted on the Cboe BZX Exchange on Wednesday, recording $33 million in trading volume and $12 million in inflows, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.
The fund, trading under SSK, gives investors direct exposure to spot Solana (SOL) along with staking yields, making it the first crypto staking ETF to be approved in America.
It was a “healthy start to trading,” said Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart, who observed that it had seen $8 million in trading volume in the first 20 minutes.
Balchunas also commented on the impressive first-day volumes, stating that it “blows away” the Solana futures ETF and XRP futures ETFs but was much lower than the spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) funds when they launched.
US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a combined $4.6 billion worth of shares traded on their first day in January 2024.
“The launch of crypto staking ETFs is a defining moment for digital assets and a significant step forward in full access to the crypto ecosystem,” said Anchorage Digital co-founder Nathan McCauley, whose firm is the staking and custodian partner for the REX-Osprey ETF.
Regulatory hurdles
The REX-Osprey fund faced regulatory hurdles with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which objected to it in late May after clearing an initial registration.
The issue was whether the product qualified as an “investment company” under securities laws, but the firm managed to get around this by investing at least 40% of its assets in other ETPs, mostly domiciled outside the US.
More eyes on spot Solana ETF, altcoin ETF summer
Unlike spot Solana ETFs that still require approval from the SEC, REX-Osprey’s Solana ETF is structured under the Investment Company Act 1940, which sidesteps the standard 19b-4 filing process.
In May, NovaDius Wealth Management president Nate Geraci described it as “regulatory end-around.” However, some have debated whether the fund should be considered a traditional spot Solana ETF.
Meanwhile, the ETF’s recent performance could shed light on institutional demand for a spot Solana ETF, which may launch this year.
Seyffart and Balchunas recently pegged a 95% chance that spot Solana ETFs would be approved by the end of the year.
“We expect a wave of new ETFs in the second half of 2025,” Seyffart said earlier this week, predicting that spot XRP, Solana, and Litecoin (LTC) products would be greenlit by the SEC before the end of the year.
Related: Analysts raise chance of SOL, XRP and LTC ETF approval to 95%
On Tuesday, the regulator approved a Grayscale application to convert its Digital Large-Cap Fund into an ETF. The fund comprises a basket of the top five digital assets by market capitalization.
Minor reaction for SOL prices
There was no major reaction in Solana prices, which have gained 3.6% over the past 24 hours, lower than most of the other high-cap altcoins.
The asset was trading around $153 at the time of writing and was up around 5% over the past week, but still down 48% from its January peak.
However, Solana CME futures saw “record demand, signaling rising institutional interest” as open interest hit $167 million following the ETF launch, reported SolanaFloor.
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