BREAKING: Solana ETFs Near Finish Line as Grayscale & VanEck Disclose Competitive Fee Structures

Wall Street's crypto gold rush just got hotter. Two heavyweight asset managers just fired the starting pistol in the Solana ETF fee war—and the race for institutional adoption just hit ludicrous speed.

Grayscale vs. VanEck: The Fee Showdown

No more whispers in boardrooms. The SEC's rubber stamp isn't dry yet, but the sharks are already circling. VanEck's playing the low-cost disruptor (shocking, right?), while Grayscale's leaning on its first-mover cred. Either way, your 401(k) manager will soon have some explaining to do.

The Institutional On-Ramp Goes Live

Forget moonboys on Telegram—this is about pension funds and endowments getting skin in the game. With fee structures now public, the institutional floodgates are creaking open. Cue the usual suspects crying 'but the decentralization!' before quietly allocating 2% of their portfolio.

Final Thought: Nothing accelerates blockchain adoption like old-school finance greed. The irony's thicker than a Wall Street bonus—and twice as predictable.

VanEck to Lower Fees and Opt for Staking on VSOL

VanEck’s new proposal is a more aggressive pitch for innovation. The VanEck Solana Trust fund will be listed under the ticker VSOL on Cboe BZX, pending regulatory approval.

VanEck charges a more aggressive 1.5% annual sponsor fee, well below Grayscale’s. It’s a model that could appeal to cash-strapped institutional and retail investors alike.

VanEck’s filing is unique among US-based crypto ETFs, including staking of SOL from the start.

To mitigate risk, VanEck added that it will have stringent criteria to select staking validators, such as performance metrics, slashing history, and security certifications.

The ETF starts with regular staking first, but VanEck is already ready to scale. The company revealed that it might integrate liquid staking tokens (LSTs) in the future, once the regulatory framework is clearer. These can be symbols that enable users to stake assets and maintain liquidity — a common theme in the DeFi world.

Gemini Trust Company and Coinbase Custody will share the custody of the Solana tokens for the VanEck trust.

SEC advances review process for Solana ETFs

The filing of these amended S-1s is critical in the process. It indicates that, as both Grayscale and VanEck, they likely have both had initial responses from the SEC and are moving in the right direction towards compliance.

According to experts in the world of the cryptocurrency industry, it is a reflection of the broader trend. The SEC has shown an increasingly open stance towards crypto investment products. It prefers those that emphasize transparency, custody security, and investor safety following the groundbreaking spot Bitcoin ETF approval in January 2025.

Both Solana ETFs are in the form of grantor trusts, which is a structure that other Bitcoin and ethereum funds use. This would exempt them from the Investment Company Act 1940 and the Commodity Exchange Act. As a result, they won’t be subject to the same restrictions as mutual funds or commodity pools.

Grayscale and VanEck hope to capitalize on rising demand for Solana’s high-speed, low-cost blockchain, which is used for decentralized applications (dApps), gaming, and tokenized assets.

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