Morning Minute: Solana Staking ETF Goes Live Today

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors fall slightly after weekend rally; BTC -1% at $114,500
• SOL holds $200 ahead of Bitwise BSOL ETF launch today (with staking)
• Democrats call for crypto creation and trading to be banned for elected officials
• ETHZ stock pops 14% after DAT dumps $40M in ETH
• MegaETH raises over $500M in first 24 hours of public ICO

? Solana Staking ETF Goes Live Today

Today is another first for crypto.

Solana officially joins Bitcoin and Ethereum in the ETF arena as the first U.S. spot Solana ETFs go live.

? What Happened

Four new crypto ETFs will begin trading this week across Nasdaq and the NYSE, led by Solana, Litecoin, and Hedera.

The big headline is Solana, which will see two ETFs go live:

• Bitwise Spot Solana ETF (BSOL) begins trading Tuesday
• Grayscale Solana Trust converts to an ETF Wednesday, following the same path it used for GBTC

The Bitwise ETF will track 100% spot SOL and is designed to participate in staking, meaning it could compound yield through validator rewards over time.

The Litecoin and Hedera ETFs, both from Canary Capital, also begin trading Tuesday.

This is the first wave of altcoin ETFs to reach U.S. markets after the Bitcoin ETF launch in January and Ethereum ETF rollout in July.

?️ What They’re Saying

“Confirmed. The Exchange has just posted listing notices for Bitwise Solana, Canary Litecoin and Canary HBAR to launch TOMORROW and grayscale Solana to convert the day after. Assuming there’s not some last min SEC intervention, looks like this is happening.” – Eric Balchunas, Senior ETF Analyst for Bloomberg

? Why It Matters

Solana enters ETF land with serious momentum.

SOL is now a top-5 crypto by market cap, trading near $200, and continues to dominate usage metrics with higher daily transactions than Ethereum.

And the Solana ETF unlocks new access to SOL for retirement accounts, wealth advisors, and institutional portfolios that can’t touch crypto directly.

It deepens liquidity and puts Solana in the same regulated bucket as BTC and ETH, something nearly unthinkable during the FTX collapse just two years ago.

That means inflows and diversification buying is incoming.

But, with that said, there is one key difference between these SOL ETFs and BTC & ETH – BlackRock isn’t at the table (yet).

BlackRock’s IBIT (BTC) and ETHA (ETH) are the dominant players in their respective categories of ETFs.

IBIT has seen $65B in net inflows. The next biggest is FBTC at $12B (so 5x bigger).

Similarly, ETHA has seen $14.2B in net inflows. The next biggest is Fidelity’s FETH at $2.69B (also ~5x bigger).

So while there is reason to celebrate these new ETFs, especially for SOL – take them with a grain of salt.

And pop the champagne when BlackRock announces their SOL ETF…

? Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are slightly red after the recent rally; BTC -1% at $114,500, ETH -1% at $4,120, BNB -2% at $1,140, SOL even at $199
• VIRTUAL (+14%), HBAR (+14%), TAO (+11%) and PUMP (+10%) led top movers
• Gold fell another 2% to $3,940
• France is considering a bill to build out its own Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, targeting 420k BTC over 7-8 years
• A U.S. Congressman introduced a bill that would ban the President and elected officials from owning or creating crypto
• Compass Point reiterated its bullish rating on Robinhood, citing prediction-market growth as emerging catalyst alongside core trading recovery
• Citi partnered with Coinbase for institutional crypto payments, aiming to streamline digital-asset pay-ins/payouts for clients
• IBM launched Digital Asset Haven as a platform for governments and institutions to manage wallets, governance, and execution
• Mt. Gox delayed its Bitcoin repayments another year, with their creditor timeline slipping again into late 2026
• Western Union is testing stablecoin payment rails for cross-border payments

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

In Memes

• Memecoin leaders are red; DOGE -1%, Shiba -1%, PEPE even, PENGU -1%, BONK -1%, TRUMP +12%, SPX -1%, and FARTCOIN -2%
• FUN ran 24,000% to $19M leading SOL movers; CHILLHOUSE (+130%), AVB (+117%) and build (+100%) all saw big gains

? Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

? What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• NFT leaders were red on the day; Punks even at 39 ETH, Pudgy -6% at 6.9, BAYC -6% at 6.55 ETH; Hypurr’s -1% at 1,210 HYPE
• Yapybaras (+10%) were a notable mover
• Punk Strategy acquired its 33rd Punk, though PNKSTR fell 12% to $73M
• Yuga’s The Otherside will be launching along with an Amazon NFT drop
• A collector lost $3M on a 1914 Babe Ruth rookie card after an unsuccessful 2-year hold