• Asset Manager Franklin Templeton praises the Solana (SOL) blockchain for its resilience and significant growth along with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

• Bloomberg’s analysts believe that the recently listed Ether ETFs provide the grounds for other Crypto ETFs to be launched. 

Solana (SOL) ETF received a major boost following a recent X post by $1.5 Trillion Asset Manager Franklin Templeton, lauding the resilience, maturity, and technological breakthroughs of its blockchain. In the post made on July 23, Franklin Templeton likened the Solana blockchain to that of industry heavyweights like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), highlighting its demonstration of growth and the potential for high throughput, monolithic, and architecture. 

Besides Bitcoin and Ethereum, there are other exciting and major developments that we believe will drive the crypto space forward. Solana has shown major adoption and continues to mature, overcoming technological growing pains and highlighting the potential of high-throughput, monolithic architectures.

As one of the first issuers of the spot Bitcoin ETFs, Franklin Templeton’s comment means a lot to the ecosystem especially after Analyst Eric Balchunas of Bloomberg Intelligence admitted that the approval of Ether ETFs would pave the way for more altcoin ETFs. 

Keep in mind after launch, there are flows, and then add ETH products, I’m sure, then Solana, and then… It’s probably never going to end. The dam has broken.

Revisiting GSR Analysis on Potential Solana ETF Approval

In late June, Investment manager VanEck filed to list the first Solana ETF in the US. However, a GSR report titled “Is Solana Next?” pointed out that Solana lacks the basic requirements demanded for an ETF to gain approval. 

In our review of that report, we deduced that the regulating body primarily expects underlying assets to have federally-regulated futures markets that have operated for years. Unfortunately, Solana “does not tick the box.” GSR also subjected Solana to the analysis of decentralization and demand, which are probable determinants for ETF approvals. 

Under the demand analysis, the market indicators reported to be considered by regulators include Existing Product Asset Under Management (AUM) and Activity Metrics. Based on the assessment, only Ethereum, Solana, and NEAR have above-average scores. Under decentralization, Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche (AVAX), and APT had the higher marks. Meanwhile, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has flagged SOL as securities in its lawsuit against Binance. 

Addressing these concerns, Head of Digital Assets Research at VanEck Matthew Sigel explained that its decision to file for Solana ETF ahead of other cryptos like XRP is purely based on regulations and technicalities. According to him, Solana’s decentralization and blockchain characteristics and that of Ethereum are fundamentally the same. 

In our publication, Sigel pointed out the availability of several ETFs in the market which have no Futures market of significant size to disprove the assessment in the GSR report. To him, Solana has a similar chance as any other ETF in the market. 

Frankly, we think that the focus on that regulated market of significant size—the Futures Market—is a gentler scope. There are other ETFs in the market without a futures market of significant size like power, shipping, and uranium markets, where the futures market is just immaterial to the price formation in those markets.

At press time, SOL was trading at $169 after surging by 4% in the last 24 hours. 

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