In brief
- The Rex-Osprey Solana + Staking ETF will hold SOL via a Cayman subsidiary and stake at least 50% of its holdings.
- It is registered under the Investment Company Act and taxed as a C-corp, unlike traditional spot ETFs.
- The launch comes as at least nine spot Solana ETFs, filed under the Securities Act, await SEC approval.
Rex Shares and Osprey Funds will list the first U.S. exchange-traded fund offering direct exposure to a cryptocurrency with on-chain staking rewards on Wednesday, a spokesperson has confirmed to Decrypt.
The Rex-Osprey Solana + Staking ETF will hold Solana, the sixth-largest digital asset by market capitalization, through a Cayman Islands subsidiary, aiming to generate yield by staking at least half of those holdings, according to a prospectus.
The fund “will be launching,” the spokesperson confirmed in a Monday email to Decrypt, just hours after fund Rex Shares teased in an X post that the fund would be arriving “Wednesday.”
It marks the “first-ever staked crypto ETF in the U.S.,” Rex Shares said in its post.
It’s worth noting that while the Rex-Osprey ETF holds Solana directly and tracks its spot price, it is not structured as a spot ETF in the traditional regulatory sense.
Instead, it is registered under the Investment Company Act and taxed as a C-corporation, in contrast to the commodity trust structure used by Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs.
Rex Shares’ post on X comes just three days after the SEC responded to the company’s letter earlier on Friday, stating that it had no additional comments on the fund. Rex and Osprey proposed the ETF in May, along with an Ethereum ETF that would also provide staking rewards.
The fund’s launch comes ahead of a potential wave of spot Solana ETFs, which are expected to be registered under the Securities Act, with at least nine filings currently under review by the SEC. Seven of those issuers recently filed amended S-1 forms specifically clarifying language around staking.
Bloomberg analysts have projected a 95% probability that those ETFs will receive the regulatory green light, likely within the next two to four months.
Staking refers to the process of pledging tokens to a decentralized network in exchange for yield, or financial rewards. It has been a sensitive issue for regulators in the prior administration, who expressed concerns over the financial and security-related risks posed by the practice.
The SEC is currently reviewing applications for approximately 80 funds that either track the ongoing performance of a major altcoin or provide some other variation of exposure to digital assets. Those proposals follow the dramatic success of spot Bitcoin ETFs and the respectable performance of spot Ethereum funds since their approval last year.
The Bitcoin-focused products have accrued nearly $50 billion in net investments, while the Ethereum funds have netted about $4.1 billion in assets.
Solana was recently trading at about $155, up more than 2% over the past 24 hours, according to data provider CoinGecko. The asset, which has performed sluggishly for much of the year, has risen about 10% during the past week amid growing optimism about the prospects of a Solana fund.
In an X post on Friday, Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas speculated that Rex and Osprey were trying to introduce their Solana product before the spot funds garner approval.
“They’re no doubt trying to get it to [market] ahead of the spot ones,” he wrote, adding: “…here’s the SEC saying it has no further comments, so they are good to launch it looks like. Wow.”
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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