Solana ETFs have a promising future on traditional exchanges after the Bitwise fund’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange surpassed $56 million in first-day trading volume.
Matt Hogan, chief investment officer at Bitwise, described the Bitwise Solana Scking ETF (BSOL) as “the missing piece of the puzzle” in a conversation with Cointelegraph’s daily Chain Reaction show, as the product attracted millions of dollars in investments on the New York Stock Exchange.
So, @Bitwise Invest The Solana Stake ETF had a total trading volume of $56 million after its debut @NYSE 💰
like @Eric Balchunas Reportedly, the biggest ETF debut in 2026.@Matt_Hogan described $BSOL As “the missing piece of the puzzle”.
This is why @Solana ETFs will attract… pic.twitter.com/syFGy6Dwm9
– Gareth Jenkinson (@gazza_jenks) October 29, 2025
Up until this point, Hogan said, investors would have stood to gain more by owning Solana in ways that allowed them to directly own assets and earn a return from investing in an ETF or non-staking product.
“Once you put it in an ETF, you get all the great things about an ETF. Very low costs, institutional custody. You buy it from your brokerage account. It’s as easy as the push of a button. They get that stake for you,” Hogan said.
“I think it’s going to become one of the main ways people invest in Solana globally. I think it’s a big deal.”
Investors want custody and areal yield
Hogan revealed the difference between traditional cryptocurrency ETFs such as Bitcoin and Ethereum products, which primarily give investors exposure to the underlying assets. ETFs have a double benefit for investors, Hogan explained.
“So, as an investor in something like $BSOL, you’re not only getting Solana returns, but every year you’re getting about 7% of additional Solana on top of that. For a TradFi investor, it’s a bit like a dividend in an overly simplistic sense.”
The product also helps decentralize and secure the Solana network, Hogan said. The $BSOL ETF has launched $222 million in assets, amounting to over 1.1 million SOL tokens.
Bitwise’s SOL ETF had the largest trading volume of any ETF in its 2025 debut, Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, reported.
A regulatory change made Solana ETFs possible
Hogan also credited a regulatory shift in the U.S. as a catalyst for getting the final green light for Solana’s ETFs. During Gary Gensler’s tenure at the helm of the SEC, bitcoin and ether ETFs took years to get the regulatory green light.
The Bitwise CEO said Solana ETFs would not have been “even remotely feasible” if there had not been a major change in attitude towards the cryptocurrency sector by US regulators.
“Even just dismantling Solana was impossible, right? We barely managed to get Ethereum through Gary Gensler’s hole,” Hogan said. “And there was no way to get anything else through that hole. And then adding staking on top of it, staking is even more complicated.”
Related: Bitwise SOL ETF Debuts With $223M in Assets, Showing Strong Institutional Demand
He said a number of complexities also confounded regulators, including liquidity and tax implications. However, the launch of BSOL and Grayscale’s Solana Trust ETF (GSOL) could open the door to other TradFi investment products tied to proof-of-stake protocols.
“Not only have we done this now, but this also opens the door for a variety of other ETP products to launch that have a staking process as well. So this is a major proof of concept in the history of crypto ETP products in the US.”
Magazine: Solana vs Ethereum ETFs, Facebook’s Impact on Bitwise: Hunter Horsley
