Author: Alex O’Donnell, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Tao Zhu, Golden Finance
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart said on January 16 that even under a crypto-friendly White House, the Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF) may not be launched in the United States until 2026.
Seyffart said in an interview with Blockworks that issuers “may see” a lag in Solana ETF applications after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20.
However, “Because the SEC has precedent of taking 240-260 days to review an application, the timeline could extend into 2026,” Seyffart said.
The SEC’s ongoing lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchanges alleging that Solana constitutes an unregistered security further complicates the review process, he said.
“The SEC Enforcement Division’s claim that Solana is a security has prevented other SEC divisions from analyzing it as a commodity ETF wrapper,” Seyffart said.
The market is betting on the possibility of Solana ETF approval. Source: Polymarket
Trump, who has pledged to turn the United States into the "cryptocurrency capital of the world," plans to appoint cryptocurrency-friendly leaders to lead major financial regulators, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Under President Joe Biden, the SEC has taken an aggressive regulatory stance on cryptocurrencies, taking hundreds of actions against industry companies.
In 2024, the agency authorized issuers to list spot bitcoin and ethereum ETFs in January and July, respectively.
Other ETF applications, however, including several proposed spot SOL ETFs, are in limbo.
“A lot of Solana ETF applications have been filed but not recognized by the SEC — they’ve actually been rejected outright,” Seyffart said.
In 2024, asset managers filed a flurry of regulatory filings to list ETFs that hold altcoins, including SOL, XRP and litecoin, among others.
Issuers are also awaiting approval for several planned crypto index ETFs, which are designed to hold a variety of digital tokens.
In effect, these applications are “call options on a Trump win” in the U.S. presidential election, Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in October.
Not everyone agrees with Seyffart. In November, Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, said there was an “extremely high” chance that the SOL ETF would be listed in the U.S. by the end of 2025.
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