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The first proper SOL ETF is going live today and the Solana manlets are jubilant. 

We’ve also recapped some choice quotes from Jack’s conversation with the Solana Foundation’s Amira Valliani.

If you have Lightspeed content ideas, please DM me on Twitter or email me at [email protected]

Bitwise SOL ETF launch:

Bitwise’s Solana Staking ETP (BSOL) went live for trading today on the NYSE Arca.

It’s the first SOL ETP in the US to have pure, 100% direct spot SOL exposure. This is in contrast to the existing REX/Osprey SOL ETF (SSK) that targets SOL exposure via a “fund-of-funds” model that mixes direct SOL with stakes in other ETPs.

Bitwise’s BSOL also aims to stake 100% of SOL holdings, using Helius as its validator technology partner and effectively delivering a ~7% average yield to investors.

The future of DePIN with Amira Valliani

Jack Kubinec: Where does the future of DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure network) look most promising?

Amira Valliani: There are the obvious standouts like Helium and Hivemapper. Then there’s a whole crop of DePINs taking distributed approaches to tracking shipping, tracking satellites, doing satellite communication [and] monitoring different sorts of logistics. These DePINs have built out extensive node coverage, like Wingbits, 375ai and Skymapper.

The other area I'm most excited about is the intersection of physical AI, robotics and DePIN. This area sits at the intersection of the biggest narratives in tech. We're seeing a huge decrease in the cost of robotics hardware like humanoids, drones [and] autonomous vehicles. Only 1-5% of data is available to our LLMs. What DePIN can do is collect a bunch of that data using physical means and improve those models.

Jack Kubinec: Why should the average person care about DePIN?

Amira Valliani: DePIN will make a huge difference in people's lives without them knowing it. For example, consumers of Mapbox or Lyft don't know they bought the map from Hivemapper. Similarly with a lot of AI collection plays, you're not gonna know that the data that was used was collected in a distributed fashion. You are just the consumer who's benefiting from a product that's really strong and robust because it has the benefits of this distributed use case.

On the supply side, I think the provision and call-to-action shouldn’t necessarily be easy. DePIN contributors should be willing to do some level of work for rewards. That might be a few dollars, or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the case of DoubleZero. Downloading a simple Chrome extension and collecting rewards is not a sustainable narrative.

Jack Kubinec: Why hasn’t DePIN for energy taken off yet?

Amira Valliani: Virtual power plants (VPPs) like Fuse, Sourceful, Powerledger are tackling this problem. Fuse is taking an ambitious, vertically-integrated approach to it which requires buying solar farms. 60,000 people are actually paying for energy via Fuse. Sourceful and Powerledger, however, are taking a more consumer-focused approach and selling hardware for you to plug into your walls and measure your input into energy grids.

It's a really difficult problem to crack. You see this across the energy sector. We’ve been trying for years as society to help increase incentivization of renewable energy sources, or decrease usage during peak loads

Full episode on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and X.

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Padre growth:

We looked yesterday at the controversy surrounding Pump’s acquisition of the Padre trading bot/terminal. That acquisition has unsurprisingly led to a burst in Padre usage. 

About 7% of all trading bot volumes yesterday came from Padre, behind only Phantom at 9% and Axiom at 62%.