Although the action of asset management company VanEck submitting the SOL ETF has caused a lot of excitement among Solana supporters and even led to a significant rebound in SOL prices, industry professionals hold divergent views on the approval of the SOL ETF.
Wintermute founder urges: Don’t be unrealistic
Evgeny Gaevoy, founder of crypto market maker Wintermute, believes that the possibility of the SOL ETF being approved this year is almost zero, and he believes that the application was submitted more for PR purposes. Even if the SOL ETF is approved, the inflow of funds will be minimal.
Furthermore, Evgeny Gaevoy also added that, although Wintermute is a long-term supporter of SOL and ETH, it is still important to be pragmatic as the adoption of cryptocurrencies takes time.
On the other hand, Haseeb Qureshi, partner at investment firm Dragonfly Capital, shares a similar view. He believes that BTC and ETH ETFs meet the market regulatory requirements of the SEC because the future markets for these assets have already matured. “Without a futures market, they cannot meet the market regulatory standards,” said Haseeb Qureshi.
James Seyffart, an ETF expert at Bloomberg Intelligence, also mentioned that the approval of the SOL ETF will only be possible after a change in political parties and a reshuffle of personnel at the White House and SEC. The earliest possible launch would be in 2025, and even then, there is no guarantee of approval.
The biggest legal obstacle facing the SOL ETF is that the SEC’s enforcement division has repeatedly stated that SOL is an unregistered security. This opinion from the SEC is based on the Securities Act passed in the early 1930s and the Howey test, which determines what constitutes a “security investment.”