Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) filed on March 25 to trade a spot Solana (SOL) exchange-traded fund (ETF) issued by Fidelity through the registration of a 19b-4 form. The move comes four days after Fidelity registered a Solana fund in Delaware.
As of Dec. 31, Fidelity registered $5.9 trillion in assets under management, making it the third-largest asset manager in the world.
The firm also registers the second-largest inflows from spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) ETFs traded in the US, amassing nearly $13 billion per Farside Investors’ data.
Notably, the move comes five days after the first SOL-related ETFs started trading in the US. Issuer Volatility Shares launched two products tracking the price of Solana futures contracts, one of which offers exposure with 2X leverage.
Solana ETF race
Fidelity joins the list of companies aiming to offer an SOL ETF in the US, along with 21shares, Canary Capital, Bitwise, VanEck, and Grayscale.
Comparing BTC and ETH exchange-traded products’ inflows to their market caps, JPMorgan estimated in January that SOL ETFs could see inflows between $3 billion and $6 billion.
Solana futures recently started trading in the US on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) on March 17, and initial volume indicates that traders have a decent appetite for SOL.
K33 head of research Vetle Lunde pointed out that SOL futures traded $12.3 million on March 17, an underwhelming amount compared to BTC’s $102.7 million and ETH’s $31 million.
However, using the assets’ market caps to normalize the volumes, Lunde noted that the interest in Solana futures aligns with Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Competitive ETF landscape
Asset managers are testing regulatory boundaries in the US after President Donald Trump took the White House for a second term.
Filings for altcoin-related ETFs range from major-cap cryptos such as Litecoin (LTC), XRP, Cardano (ADA), and Polkadot (DOT) to medium-cap assets such as Hedera (HBAR) and Axelar (AXL).
Recently, Canary Capital filed for the first ETF tracking the price of a non-fungible token (NFT) collection. The fund will be exposed to the PENGU token and Pudgy Penguins NFTs if approved.
Even memecoins are considered for ETFs. For example, Bitwise filed a Dogecoin (DOGE) ETF in January, expanding the ETF race to new assets.
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