Solana CME futures tip impending US ETF approvals — Exec

The upcoming launch of Solana (SOL) futures on the Chicago Mercantile Trade (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, instructed 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 way in which for the eventual approval of SOL ETFs,” Chung instructed Cointelegraph.

Chung mentioned he expects the US Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) to approve asset managers VanEck and Canary Capital’s proposed spot Solana ETFs as quickly as Might.

The existence of regulated Solana futures “indicators to regulators that Solana is maturing as an asset, making it simpler for them to greenlight further monetary merchandise of comparable danger and sort,” Chung mentioned. 

Futures contracts are standardized agreements to purchase or promote an underlying asset at a future date. They play a vital supporting position for spot cryptocurrency ETFs as a result of regulated futures markets present a secure benchmark for measuring a digital asset’s efficiency.

CME already lists futures contracts for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). US regulators accepted ETFs for each of these cryptocurrencies final 12 months. 

Associated: CME Group reports record crypto volumes for Q4

Past memecoins

Moreover, Solana futures and ETFs will assist develop Solana’s progress story past memecoins, which had been central to the blockchain community’s success in 2024, Chung mentioned.

These merchandise “will convey extra critical, sticky capital and pave the way in which for the event of different real-world use instances, akin to 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 may buoy Solana’s worth 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. 

Rivaling Ethereum

Nonetheless, cryptocurrency trading volumes on Solana proceed to rival these of the whole 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 worth has struggled since March 2024, when the community’s Dencun improve lower transaction charges by roughly 95%. 

“With the extraordinarily weak worth motion we’re seeing in ETH, Solana is now the one possibility for retail buyers eager 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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