Solana ETF Race Heats Up as Grayscale Joins Bitwise on Wall Street
Grayscale Investments launched its Solana Trust ETF on NYSE Arca on Tuesday, changing into the primary of the agency’s staking merchandise to uplist beneath new SEC-approved generic itemizing requirements.
The transfer intensifies competitors within the nascent Solana ETF market, the place Bitwise’s debut product already captured $69.5 million in first-day inflows.
The launch expands Grayscale’s digital asset lineup past Bitcoin and Ethereum, providing buyers publicity to Solana’s proof-of-stake blockchain by way of a well-known exchange-traded wrapper.
GSOL now joins Bitwise’s BSOL and Rex-Osprey’s SSK as the third Solana ETF buying and selling on U.S. exchanges.
Grayscale Enters With Staking-Enabled Structure
GSOL carries a 0.35% expense ratio and holds 525,387 SOL tokens, with 74.89% presently staked to generate community rewards.
Grayscale intends to cross on 77% of all staking rewards to buyers on a internet foundation, probably including 5-6% annual returns primarily based on historic Solana staking yields of 6-8%.
Introducing Grayscale Solana Trust ETF (Ticker: $GSOL), providing buyers publicity to @Solana $SOL, one of many fastest-growing digital property. $GSOL options:
Convenient Solana publicity paired with staking advantages.
Exposure to a high-speed, low-cost blockchain.… pic.twitter.com/TgVNlhqBPO
— Grayscale (@Grayscale) October 29, 2025
The fund first launched as a personal belief in 2021, was listed on OTCQX in 2023, and commenced staking in October 2025.
Inkoo Kang, Senior Vice President of ETFs at Grayscale, framed the launch as proof that digital property belong in “trendy portfolios” alongside conventional equities and bonds.
Kristin Smith, President of Solana Policy Institute, additionally famous that staking ETPs permits buyers “to assist safe the community, speed up innovation for builders, and earn rewards on one of the crucial dynamic property in trendy finance.”
The product is just not registered beneath the Investment Company Act of 1940, which means it lacks the regulatory protections of conventional ETFs and mutual funds.
Grayscale emphasised that GSOL represents oblique publicity to Solana and carries important dangers, together with the potential lack of principal.
Bitwise Dominates Early Solana ETF Flows
Bitwise’s Solana ETF captured $69.5 million on its October 28 debut, practically six occasions the $12 million raised by Rex-Osprey’s competing product.
BSOL stakes 100% of its held SOL tokens in-house to ship Solana’s full community yield to buyers, charging a 0.20% administration price that has been waived for the primary three months.
Matt Hougan, Bitwise’s Chief Investment Officer, attributed institutional enthusiasm to Solana’s on-chain income management.
“Institutional buyers love ETFs, and so they love income,” he mentioned.
Rex-Osprey’s SSK takes a special method, holding 54% in direct Solana, 43.5% in a Swiss-listed CoinShares ETP, and the rest in JitoSOL and money, with month-to-month staking rewards labeled as return of capital for tax functions.
Despite constructive sentiment round ETFs, the market stays cautious about near-term worth motion.
Traders on Polymarket give Solana only a 28% probability of reaching a brand new all-time high earlier than 2026, with SOL buying and selling at $200 at present, up practically 1% over 24 hours.
Solana Challenges Ethereum’s Institutional Dominance
Speaking with Cryptonews, Maria Carola, CEO of StealthEX, views the Solana ETF launch as a defining second within the battle for Layer 1 blockchain dominance.
“The launch of a spot ETF on Solana is a sign that has damaged out within the protracted battle for dominance within the Layer 1 blockchain area,” she mentioned.
“For the primary time, institutional buyers are being invited to think about Solana as a standalone macro asset.“
Carola notes that projections of $3 billion in ETF inflows over the subsequent 12-18 months rely on Solana sustaining its 2024 momentum in DeFi growth and community stability.
She acknowledges that whereas Solana affords technological benefits in velocity and scalability, “it’s Ethereum’s fundamentals, such as stability, institutional popularity, and integration into the worldwide monetary system, that preserve its management.”
Ethereum presently holds over $60 billion locked in DeFi with a mature staking ecosystem that continues to set the usual for institutional buyers in search of predictability and reliability.
However, Carola suggests a possible coexistence mannequin the place “Ethereum serves as the underlying belief and settlement layer within the on-chain financial system, whereas Solana turns into its high-performance execution engine.”
She provides that if ETF influx projections are met by the top of 2025, “Solana might turn into the primary blockchain since Ethereum to interrupt the institutional glass ceiling.“
Regulatory Momentum Builds Across Multiple Blockchains
The Solana ETF wave follows Hong Kong’s October approval of China Asset Management’s SOL spot fund, which started buying and selling on October 27 with a minimal funding of $100.
The product carries a 0.99% administration price and a 1.99% complete expense ratio, making Solana the third cryptocurrency, after Bitcoin and Ethereum, to obtain spot ETF clearance within the territory.
Multiple U.S. issuers, together with VanEck, Canary Capital, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, and CoinShares, have additionally acquired approval for Solana ETF proposals.
SEC Poised to Approve HBAR ETF — Hedera’s Gregg Bell calls it a “new chapter” for regulated crypto entry, marking the primary time buyers can achieve ETF publicity to $HBAR#HBAR #ETFhttps://t.co/x1w10VfAvE
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) October 28, 2025
Recently, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas additionally confirmed that the SEC is expected to approve the first Hedera and Litecoin ETFs, with itemizing notices for Canary’s HBAR and LTC merchandise scheduled for October 28.
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