Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will not see significant demand among US investors, according to Katalin Tischhauser, head of investment research at cryptocurrency bank Sygnum.
Tischhauser told Cointelegraph that “minuscule” investor flows into the Grayscale Solana Trust (GSOL), the private SOL fund (SOL) of asset manager Grayscale, indicate weak demand for SOL investment vehicles among U.S. wealth managers.
According to Grayscale, GSOL's assets under management are less than $70 million. By comparison, the Grayscale bitcoin Trust managed nearly $30 billion before its conversion into an ETF in January, according to Tischhauser.
“The small AUM reflects the relative name recognition of Solana versus bitcoin,” Tischhauser said.
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GSOL shares are trading at an unusually high premium to net asset value (NAV), which was more than 7 times as of August 15. NAV is a measure of the underlying value of SOL per share in the fund.
“The high premium suggests some demand, but it is not the type of demand that will have a significant impact on the market,” according to Tischhauser.
bitcoin (btc) and Ether (eth) ETFs saw record inflows in 2024 and now total nearly $63 billion in AUM combined, according to data from Morningstar.
Since launching in January, btc ETFs have seen “more than three times the largest annual inflow of any ETF in the history of ETFs,” said Dave LaValle, Grayscale’s global head of ETFs. “So we’re talking about massive, massive adoption.”
This has sparked a flurry of speculation about which crypto assets will be next to launch as ETFs. Asset managers including Franklin Templeton, VanEck and 21Shares have expressed interest in launching SOL ETFs.
BlackRock, the largest ETF manager by AUM, has no plans to launch a SOL ETF, citing “very little interest” from its clients.
“Smaller issuers can make more money than they spend by launching and operating these products,” Tischhauser said. “But it’s not going to be significant for the cryptocurrency market, it’s not going to be exciting.”
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