The upcoming launch of Solana (SOL) futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), a United States derivatives exchange, signals that the very first United States SOL exchange-traded fund (ETF) listings are coming quickly, Chris Chung, creator of Solana-based swap platform Titan, informed Cointelegraph.
On March 17, CME is preparing to release SOL futures agreements. They will be amongst the very first controlled Solana futures to strike the United States market after Coinbase’s released in February.
The listing “leads the way for the ultimate approval of SOL ETFs,” Chung informed Cointelegraph.
Chung stated he anticipates the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to authorize possession supervisors VanEck and Canary Capital’s proposed area Solana ETFs as quickly as Might.
The presence of controlled Solana futures “signals to regulators that Solana is growing as a property, making it much easier for them to greenlight extra monetary items of comparable danger and type,” Chung stated.
Futures agreements are standardized contracts to purchase or offer a hidden possession at a future date. They play an important supporting function for area cryptocurrency ETFs since regulated futures markets supply a steady criteria for determining a digital possession’s efficiency.
CME currently notes futures agreements for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). United States regulators authorized ETFs for both of those cryptocurrencies in 2015.
CME currently notes crypto futures, consisting of Bitcoin agreements. Source: CME
Related: CME Group reports record crypto volumes for Q4
Beyond memecoins
Furthermore, Solana futures and ETFs will assist broaden Solana’s development story beyond memecoins, which were main to the blockchain network’s success in 2024, Chung stated.
These items “will bring more major, sticky capital and lead the way for the advancement of other real-world usage cases, such as payments and remittances,” according to Chung.
Those usage cases are “[f] ar more dull than memecoins, maybe, however a trustworthy source of long-lasting income that will buoy Solana’s cost in the next bearishness.”
Memecoin trading, mainly connected to the popular Pump.fun platform, makes up approximately 80% of the Solana blockchain network’s profits, according to possession supervisor VanEck.
Nevertheless, activity on the Solana network decreased in February after a series of memecoin-related scandals soured belief amongst retail traders.
Solana vs. Ethereum cost chart. Source: TradingView
Matching Ethereum
Still, cryptocurrency trading volumes on Solana continue to equal those of the whole Ethereum environment, including its layer-2 scaling chains, VanEck stated on March 6.
Chung stated he anticipates Solana ETFs to remove amongst retail financiers, partially since of the obstacles dealing with competing wise agreement platform Ethereum.
Solana’s native SOL token has actually carried out about two times along with Ether because early 2024, according to TradingView.
Ethereum’s area cost has actually had a hard time because March 2024, when the network’s Dencun upgrade cut deal costs by around 95%.
” With the exceptionally weak cost action we’re seeing in ETH, Solana is now the only alternative for retail financiers wishing to get direct exposure to crypto beyond Bitcoin, however not happy to go complete degen,” Chung stated.
Bloomberg Intelligence has actually set the chances of the SEC authorizing area Solana and Litecoin ETFs at 70%.
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