The upcoming launch of Solana (SOL) futures on the Chicago Mercantile Change (CME), a US derivatives trade, indicators that the primary US SOL exchange-traded fund (ETF) listings are coming quickly, Chris Chung, founding father of Solana-based swap platform Titan, advised Cointelegraph.
On March 17, CME is preparing to launch SOL futures contracts. They are going to be among the many first regulated Solana futures to hit the US market after Coinbase’s launched in February.
The itemizing “paves the best way for the eventual approval of SOL ETFs,” Chung advised Cointelegraph.
Chung mentioned he expects the US Securities and Change Fee (SEC) to approve asset managers VanEck and Canary Capital’s proposed spot Solana ETFs as quickly as Could.
The existence of regulated Solana futures “indicators to regulators that Solana is maturing as an asset, making it simpler for them to greenlight extra monetary merchandise of comparable danger and kind,” Chung mentioned.
Futures contracts are standardized agreements to purchase or promote an underlying asset at a future date. They play an important supporting position for spot cryptocurrency ETFs as a result of regulated futures markets present a steady benchmark for measuring a digital asset’s efficiency.
CME already lists futures contracts for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). US regulators accredited ETFs for each of these cryptocurrencies final 12 months.
CME already lists crypto futures, together with Bitcoin contracts. Supply: CME
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Past memecoins
Moreover, Solana futures and ETFs will assist develop Solana’s development story past memecoins, which have been central to the blockchain community’s success in 2024, Chung mentioned.
These merchandise “will deliver extra critical, sticky capital and pave the best way for the event of different real-world use instances, reminiscent of funds and remittances,” in accordance with Chung.
These use instances are “[f]ar extra boring than memecoins, maybe, however a dependable supply of long-term income that can buoy Solana’s value within the subsequent bear market.”
Memecoin buying and selling, largely tied to the favored Pump.enjoyable platform, contains roughly 80% of the Solana blockchain community’s revenues, in accordance with asset supervisor VanEck.
Nonetheless, exercise on the Solana community declined in February after a collection of memecoin-related scandals soured sentiment amongst retail merchants.
Solana vs. Ethereum value chart. Supply: TradingView
Rivaling Ethereum
Nonetheless, cryptocurrency trading volumes on Solana proceed to rival these of your entire Ethereum ecosystem, together with its layer-2 scaling chains, VanEck mentioned on March 6.
Chung mentioned he expects Solana ETFs to take off amongst retail buyers, partly due to the challenges dealing with rival good contract platform Ethereum.
Solana’s native SOL token has carried out about twice in addition to Ether since early 2024, in accordance with TradingView.
Ethereum’s spot value has struggled since March 2024, when the community’s Dencun improve minimize transaction charges by roughly 95%.
“With the extraordinarily weak value motion we’re seeing in ETH, Solana is now the one choice for retail buyers desirous to get publicity to crypto past Bitcoin, however not keen to go full degen,” Chung mentioned.
Bloomberg Intelligence has set the chances of the SEC approving spot Solana and Litecoin ETFs at 70%.
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