The long-awaited debut of Solana’s U.S. spot ETFs attracted solid demand, according to analysts, but you wouldn’t know it from the SOL. price action.
The token, which hit a high of $205 a day before the ETF launch last Tuesday, has fallen 20% to $165 in a week. It has vastly underperformed the already weak stock of major cryptocurrencies bitcoin. and ether which fell around 6% and 12%, respectively.
All of that happened despite Solana-based exchange-traded products recording their second-strongest weekly net inflow last week at $421 million, according to a CoinShares report.
Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33, described the ETFs’ first week as “very strong”, adding that it was even more commendable compared to the strong outflows of its BTC and ETH counterparts.
“The launch of Solana’s US spot ETFs has been a clear success, attracting strong investor demand despite broader outflows from crypto funds,” Lunde said in a note.
Most of the inflow went into Bitwise’s Solana ETF (BSOL), which attracted roughly $199 million in new funding and launched with nearly $223 million in seed capital, according to Farside Investor Data.
That $421 million total made BSOL the top-performing crypto ETF of the week, surpassing even BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which saw muted demand as the price of bitcoin continued to fall, CoinShares data showed.
Solana’s other spot ETF, Grayscale’s Solana Trust (GSOL), by contrast, only made $2.2 million. Still, it entered the market with $102 million in assets under management after converting from an existing closed-end product.
GSOL charges a 0.35% management fee, much lower than the 1.5% fee for its flagship bitcoin or ether products, GBTC and ETHE. Still, Bitwise undercut it with a 0.20% fee on BSOL.
“BSOL’s lower fees and first-mover advantage have fueled its rapid growth, while GSOL’s higher costs and later debut have tempered entries,” K33’s Lunde said.
