On June 30, the Solana spot staking ETF jointly launched by REX and Osprey was approved and will officially start trading on July 2, this Wednesday. This is the first cryptocurrency ETF in the US market that includes on-chain staking income. After the news was announced, the price of SOL rose by nearly 6%, breaking through $160 in a short period of time and now at $154. Previously, the SOL ETF applications submitted by many well-known institutions have not been approved for a long time, but an unknown company has passed customs first.
What is the difference between the ETF launched by REX-Osprey, which was the first to cross the line? In the US stock market, what other companies and assets are betting on the Solana ecosystem and becoming investment targets of the SOL concept?
Unpopular companies take the lead: REX-Ospreys SOL pledge ETF is launched
Among the numerous ETF issuance applications, the first to achieve substantial progress was the SOL staking ETF launched by REX Shares and Osprey Funds. Compared with those Wall Street giants who have been unable to make a breakthrough in Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, these two companies are relatively low-key. However, it was this dark horse that took the lead in obtaining regulatory approval and launched the REX-Osprey SOL+Staking ETF, becoming the first staking-yield crypto ETF in the United States.
REXShares is an innovative exchange-traded product (ETP) issuer headquartered in Connecticut, known for launching alternative ETFs such as leverage, inverse, and option strategies. OspreyFunds is positioned in crypto asset management and has launched products such as Osprey Bitcoin Trust (OBTC). In this cooperation, REXShares leads product design, architecture construction, and regulatory registration, while OspreyFunds provides crypto asset custody, pledge execution, and asset management support.
Traditional ETF applicants such as VanEck, 21 Shares, and Bitwise, because they are registered investment companies under the 1940 Act, mostly adopt traditional trust or pure spot ETF structures, that is, simply holding SOL spot but not participating in on-chain staking. Therefore, the net asset value of the fund depends only on SOL price fluctuations, and there is no additional source of income. Regulatory approvals often focus on whether staking activities involve additional risks or management challenges, so it is difficult to obtain approval.
According to the issuer, the C-Corp (ordinary C-type company) structure adopted by the fund can hold spot SOL and perform on-chain staking, thereby obtaining income and including it in the fund assets, but because of this, the ETF does not enjoy the ETF fund tax-free channel treatment, but needs to pay income tax at the corporate level. This structure has previously been questioned by regulators, but the REX team updated the prospectus and resolved the SECs issues, and finally received feedback of no further objections.
The SEC prospectus states that the fund is classified as a non-diversified fund.
For future investors of REX-Osprey, not only can they conveniently hold SOL spot positions through ETFs, the prospectus also states that the fund will pledge at least 50% of its SOL holdings and entrust them to blockchain validators by the custodian to generate on-chain income, so they can also simultaneously obtain an annualized pledge income of about 7%.
The prospectus also mentions some related risks. The fund is a yield-enhanced ETF, not a passive index ETF. Therefore, although SOL is a reference asset, the fund will not replicate SOLs trend 100%, because the fund may also include holding other SOL-related ETFs, volatility in staking rewards, transaction fees, lock-ups during staking, liquidity management fees, etc., which may cause returns and SOL prices to be out of sync. Although from an architectural point of view, it may be more of a bloodsucking than an inflow for Solana, this undoubtedly opens a door for institutional funds that are optimistic about the Solana ecosystem but suffer from the lack of compliance tools.
List of US Stock Companies Hoarding SOL: Who is Playing the Solana Version of MicroStrategy?
With the launch of the SOL ETF, many investors have begun to turn their attention to SOL concept stocks in the traditional stock market. In fact, this year, many US-listed companies have announced that they will include Solana in their financial strategies, and even use SOL tokens as core reserves on their balance sheets.
DeFi Development Corporation (ticker: DFDV)
DeFi Development Corporation can be said to be one of the purest Solana concept targets in the US stock market. The company was formerly known as Janover and once operated a real estate financing platform, but it resolutely transformed in April this year after former Kraken Chief Strategy Officer Joseph Onorati took office. Clear the original business and go all in on Solana. DFDV formulated a strategy to hold SOL as the main financial reserve with accumulated and compounded interest, and quickly began to buy SOL in large quantities. On May 12 this year, the company purchased 172,000 SOLs at one time, bringing its total treasury holdings to over 600,000, worth more than $100 million. This holding size accounted for about one-third of the companys market value at the time.
DFDV is not satisfied with passive holding, but is also actively building Solana infrastructure. In early May, it acquired a Solana validator node business for US$3.5 million and integrated itself into the core of the network. Subsequently, it cooperated with Solanas popular Meme coin Bonk to build a verification node. The two parties jointly increased the number of entrusted SOLs and shared staking rewards. DFDV thus became the first listed company to run Solana nodes and hold liquid staking tokens (LSD), realizing the secondary appreciation of assets. Since the name change in early April, DFDV has soared more than 30 times in two months. As of mid-May, the stock closed at an all-time high of US$156.99, with a cumulative increase of 3133% this year.
SOL Strategies Inc. (CSE: HODL, US OTC: CYFRF)
Another company worth noting is SOL Strategies Inc., headquartered in Canada. The company was formerly known as Cypherpunk Holdings, and in the past it mainly invested in blockchain and privacy technology (the name is taken from the meaning of coin hoarder). In September 2024, after taking office, the new CEO Leah Wald resolutely reshaped the company into a Solana Ecosystem Investment Company, renamed it SOL Strategies, and regarded Solanas token SOL as a core asset for increased holdings.
According to the companys financial report, in just half a year, its own SOL holdings grew from zero to more than 239,000, while gradually clearing its Bitcoin holdings (from 215 to only 3), reflecting a thorough shift in strategic focus. SOL Strategies not only buys coins for itself, but also helps others manage coins: the company operates multiple high-performance Solana validator nodes and actively absorbs SOL entrusted by third parties for staking. In March of this year, the total staking scale of the verification nodes operated by the company has reached 1.65 million SOL, of which about 240,000 are owned SOL, and the rest are ecologically entrusted, with an average annualized rate of return of about 7%.
To further expand its strategy, the company announced on April 23 that it had reached an agreement with ATW Partners to establish a convertible bond financing mechanism of up to $500 million, and all proceeds will be used to purchase and pledge SOL. This financing structure is quite novel: the first batch of $20 million bonds will be issued, and then withdrawn in batches depending on the conditions, and the interest will be paid directly with the SOL pledge income (investors can obtain 85% of the pledge income). It can be understood that investors provide US dollar funds, the company buys SOL pledges, and then returns most of the pledged SOL to investors as interest. This design cleverly links bond interest with crypto asset returns to achieve a win-win situation. It is reported that SOL Strategies is also preparing to land on Nasdaq-once it is successfully listed, it is expected to become the first Nasdaq-listed company in North America with a pure Solana ecosystem.
Classover Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: KIDZ)
Next is Classover Holdings, Inc., which has emerged this year. It is a company that mainly engages in online childrens education and has nothing to do with the concept of encryption. However, in early June this year, Classover suddenly announced that it would establish the Solana Treasury Reserve Program. The company signed an agreement with Solana Growth Ventures to issue up to $500 million in senior secured convertible notes to purchase SOL tokens and hold them as financial reserves.
According to the announcement on June 2, Classover has already purchased 6,472 SOL (about $1.1 million) as a start-up, and plans to invest 80% of the financing proceeds in the purchase of SOL. The day after the news was released (June 3), Classovers stock price soared, with the highest increase of the day reaching 46% and closing at $5.45.
Upexi, Inc. (NASDAQ: UPXI)
Upexi, Inc. (NASDAQ: UPXI), a consumer goods brand company, announced in April this year that it would raise $100 million specifically for the establishment of Solanas financial reserves, of which 90% of the funds would be used for staking. Crypto investment institution GSR participated in leading the investment in Upexis private placement. The market reaction was also hot. After the announcement of the news, Upexis stock price soared more than 6 times in just a few days. Although it has now fallen back to around $3, Upexi has made several moves recently.
On June 26, Upexi announced that it would use the Opening Bell platform to tokenize its shares, tokenize its SEC-registered shares and deploy them on the Solana network. Upexi has added about 56,000 SOL in the past month, and Solana currently holds a total of 735,692 SOL, which is valued at about $105 million at current prices. With the news of the ETF and the launch of the on-chain US stock product by Robinhood and Kraken, Upexis stock price also soared 15% today.
In addition, some traditional companies have also begun to embrace the Solana strategy. For example, DigitalX (ASX:DCC), an Australian-listed blockchain investment company, announced in May that it would increase its holdings of Solana to 83,150 and use all of them for staking, with an expected annualized return of 7-9%, which would bring the company an additional income of about A$350,000 per year. DigitalX bluntly stated that compared to passively holding Bitcoin, holding Solana can participate in the fast-growing blockchain ecosystem while obtaining stable income, turning the companys assets from dormant to interest-bearing assets.
Solana provides an asset option that is more productive than Bitcoin. The considerable income generated by staking, taking DigitalXs calculation as an example, according to the current annualized staking return rate of 7-9%, the SOL it holds will bring the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in income each year. Under the compliance framework, SOL as an asset is more like a stock with its own dividends for the company.
Solana Ecosystem Hotspots: Investment Opportunities in DEX and Staking Tracks
In addition to the concept companies in the stock market, Solanas own ecological projects have also become the focus of speculative funds. In particular, the DEX and staking derivatives (LSD) tracks have also skyrocketed after the ETF was approved.
Raydium (RAY)
One of the oldest decentralized exchanges in the Solana ecosystem. It is still the DEX platform with the deepest on-chain liquidity and the most widely used. More than 55% of Solanas on-chain transactions (routed through the aggregator Jupiter) are ultimately settled on Raydium. With a deep pool of funds, Raydium is on par with Uniswap among all blockchain DEXs, and sometimes even briefly surpasses the latter in trading volume. Raydiums platform fee is also used to regularly repurchase and destroy tokens. In the past, it has repurchased more than 10% of the total supply, significantly reducing selling pressure. As Solanas trading activity increases, RAY tokens tend to benefit first.
After yesterday’s ETF news and positive news such as XSTOCKS, the price also rose by 6% in a short period of time to break through $2.2, and has now fallen back to around $2.1.
Jupiter (JUP)
The leader of trading aggregators on Solana and one of the key infrastructures of the entire network. Jupiter aggregates the liquidity of multiple DEXs such as Raydium and Orca, providing users with the best trading paths and prices, and is the preferred entry point for Solana users to conduct exchange transactions.
Data shows that Jupiter guides 50-60% of the transaction volume of the entire network. If robot traffic is excluded, more than 80% of organic transactions are completed through its front end. It can be said that Jupiter is even more important to Solana than 1inch is to Ethereum, because the cost of aggregating sub-transactions in Solanas low-cost environment is almost negligible, allowing Jupiter to give full play to its aggregation advantages.
Also after yesterday’s ETF news and positive news such as XSTOCKS, the price rose by more than 9% in a short period of time to break through $0.48, and has now fallen back to around $0.45.
Jito (JITO)
A newcomer in the Solana ecosystem liquidity pledge protocol, Jito is also the leading project in this field. Since Lido withdrew from the Solana market, Jito has risen rapidly, launched an airdrop plan in September 2023, and immediately dominated the field.
The TVL of the staking derivative tokens (Jito-SOL, etc.) provided by Jito has reached 1.705 billion US dollars, making it the largest locked-in protocol in the entire Solana ecosystem. Jitos advantage lies in the introduction of a staking scheme with MEV gain (maximum extractable value), which increases the benefits of validators, making it very attractive to institutions and large coin holders. In May of this year, Nasdaq-listed DFDV announced the purchase of liquid staking tokens produced by Jito, setting a precedent for listed companies to hold LSD, further proving the value of this track. As the native token of the protocol, the JITO token may share profits through mechanisms such as staking profit sharing in the future. As more and more SOL holders seek to improve capital efficiency, Jito is expected to continue to attract incremental funds, and the JITO token is also seen as one of the potential targets for the next stage of the Solana ecosystem.
Obviously, with the precedent of DFDV, the market naturally associated this agreement with Solana after the approval of its functional ETF. JITO also rose by about 14% in a short period of time after the news, once breaking through US$2.49 but then continued to fall and is now quoted at US$2.14.
In general, infrastructure projects benefit the most from the increasing popularity of the Solana ecosystem. Trading protocols directly share the growth in handling fees brought about by the trading boom, while staking protocols take on the surge in staking demand caused by the entry of institutions. As more traditional capital flows into SOL through ETFs and listed companies, there will be more opportunities for value capture on the Solana chain.
