Howdy!

Happy Juneteenth to our US crowd. Blockworks is out of office for the holiday, so we’re coming at you with a slightly shorter edition.

Today, we’ve got an overview of the eight horses in the Solana ETF race and a Jupiter DAO update:

The 8 firms vying to list Solana ETFs

We’re seemingly coming down to the wire for SEC approval of spot Solana ETFs, with the original seven prospective issuers filing amended S-1s in recent days and a newcomer (aka CoinShares) entering the race. 

Notably, every filing included language around staking, which, as we previously reported, the SEC asked issuers to include.

As the industry prepares for a third crypto asset to possibly get the SEC’s go-ahead on ETFs, here are the eight firms that have filed to issue Solana ETFs, in order of when they first filed:

VanEck

VanEck was first to file for a Solana ETF, almost a year ago this month. At the time, some likened the filing — despite the SEC’s insistence that Solana was a security — to a call option on a Trump victory in the November election. 

That bet paid off, but it may be something of a pyrrhic victory if the SEC follows its precedent of approving bitcoin and ether ETFs all at once rather than in order of the issuers filing first.

To that end, VanEck has been advocating for the SEC to take a “first-to-file” approach, arguing it is better for innovation and competition.  

VanEck uses Kiln to power Solana staking for its European ETP. 

21Shares

21Shares placed the Trump election call option shortly after VanEck did, and it also wants the SEC to follow a first-to-file approach. 

Coinbase is listed as 21Shares’ staking provider in a base prospectus filed in Europe. Here’s a conversation I had with the firm’s head of strategy Eliezer Ndinga on the topic of Solana ETFs last year. 

Canary Capital

Canary Capital filed for a SOL ETF days before the election.

A smaller fund than some on this list, Canary Capital has made its name lately by filing for altcoin ETFs. It has filings out for ETFs including SUI, SEI, INJ, TRX, PENGU, HBAR, LTC and XRP.

Bitwise

Bitwise first filed for an ETF shortly after Trump’s election. In an interview with me, the firm’s CEO, Hunter Horsley, called Solana an “incredible emerging asset and story.”

Bitwise also launched a solana staking ETP in December with Marinade as the staking provider — which may bode well for Marinade should staking ETFs gain approval in the US. 

Grayscale

Grayscale is looking to convert its SOL Trust into a spot ETF, similar to what it did with its bitcoin and ether trusts. The GSOL trust currently trades at a premium to its NAV, meaning investors are willing to pay more for the product than what the underlying SOL is worth.

Last month, the SEC delayed a decision on Grayscale’s ETF, saying it hadn’t “reached any conclusions” on the 19b-4 filing to list the proposed spot SOL ETF. 

Franklin Templeton

Franklin Templeton offers bitcoin and ether ETFs, and it has filings out for SOL and XRP ETFs. 

The $1.5 trillion fund has a number of other crypto initiatives, and its Digital Assets Core SMA has a small allocation to SOL. Its tokenized money market fund also added Solana support earlier this year. 

Fidelity

Fidelity is the giant in the race so far. Its Bitcoin ETF is second only to BlackRock in AUM, and its Ethereum ETF trails BlackRock and Grayscale’s converted trust. 

Fidelity is a major provider of brokerage, trust and IRA accounts, and it could be a major driver of inflows to approved SOL ETFs. 

CoinShares

CoinShares is the latest entrant in the Solana ETF race, throwing its hat in the ring at the same time that existing issuers were racing to submit amended S-1 forms. 

The crypto-focused European asset manager has existing ETPs for BTC, ETH and a range of altcoins — Tezos ETP, anyone?

— Jack Kubinec

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June 24-26 | Brooklyn, NY

JupiterDAO has been live for about 18 months. In that time, it launched a liquidity layer, distributed $JUP to users, funded working groups and became one of Solana's most active governance systems.

Community-led, token-voted, forward-thinking — at least on paper.

That narrative took a hit recently when a wallet tied to a core team member cast over 24 million JUP in a DAO vote — around 4.5% of the total voting power. These were vested tokens, part of the founder's locked allocation, which are not typically eligible for staking or governance elsewhere.

Community sleuths traced the wallet's funding directly to a Jupiter team hot wallet and presented screenshots showing the transfer.

While some initially argued that the tokens came from Mercurial stakeholder allocations, co-founder Ming Ng (also known as meow) later confirmed the wallet belonged to a third core co-founder who was actively staking and voting with his vestings.

Ming and fellow founder Siong Ong pledged to abstain from future votes, but the damage was done.

Blockworks attempted to reach representatives at Jupiter DAO for further insight, but received no response prior to publication.

Further frustration came when users realized that the same wallet received nearly 800k JUP in ASR rewards, earned while staking those locked tokens.

Critics have called this a betrayal of the DAO's values and a misalignment of incentives.

It isn't an isolated incident. Earlier in the year, the team passed a 220m token bonus (~$94m) from the DAO on top of existing allocations. Another vote approved $7m in salaries for just four contributors.

Users raised existential concerns about whether the DAO, which is supposed to be community-governed, has real authority at all. Recent votes have redefined JupiterDAO's scope to focus on marketing and community, while treasury and token strategies seem to remain firmly in team hands.

— Jeffrey Albus