As for price action, bitcoin has seen a very modest of bounce since tumbling from nearly $61,000 Wednesday to under $54,000 early Friday, currently trading back to $56,800. That’s down 6% from the week-ago levels and roughly 23% from its all-time high above $73,500 set in mid-March.

Solana ETF bids have started to trickle in at the SEC as Wall Street is abuzz with cryptocurrency talk and the digital asset regulatory scene shifts course.

Following VanEck’s punt for a Solana (SOL) Trust, fellow wealth manager 21Shares has filed its “21Shares Core Solana ETF” with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), documents submitted on Friday showed. Both filings notably removed crypto staking from bids, a common decision for crypto-backed ETFs lately.

The 21Shares spot Solana ETF application is the second of its kind, as SOL has taken centerstage during this cycle alongside heavy hitters like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). After successful Bitcoin ETF and forthcoming Ethereum ETF approvals, SOL has made the rounds as the next cryptocurrency to assume the exchange-traded fund wrapper used to attract institutional capital. 

Despite the hype, experts, and industry leaders, like Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy, argue that bringing spot SOL ETFs to market will be nearly impossible until at least next year. Gaevoy also predicted that low capital inflows into spot ETH ETFs might discourage investors from buying another crypto investment product. 

Solana ETF issuers chant SOL commodity status

Classifying Solana’s native token as a commodity instead of a security has been a shared theme among spot SOL ETF filings thus far. The strategy and underlying thesis for SOL-backed funds mirror the pathway followed by would-be spot Ethereum ETF issuers. 

On June 27, VanEck’s head of digital assets research, Matthew Sigel, wrote that SOL functions similarly to other digital commodities like Bitcoin and Ether as a transaction fee facility and payment currency for blockchain computational services. 

Additionally, Sigel posited that no single entity or intermediary controls the SOL network, further solidifying its decentralized framework and commodity status. “The broad range of applications and services supported by the SOL ecosystem, from decentralized finance (defi) to NFTs, underscores SOL’s utility and value as a digital commodity,” per Sigel. 

As the highly anticipated launch of the first spot Ethereum ETFs in the United States nears, experts are predicting a significant price appreciation for the second-largest cryptocurrency in the market.

Ethereum ETFs On The Horizon

According to a recent Reuters report, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could approve Ethereum ETFs as soon as July 4, as discussions between asset managers and regulators enter the final stages. 

Industry executives and other participants who requested anonymity due to the confidential nature of the talks revealed that the process of amending the offering documents has progressed to resolving only “minor” issues, and approval is “probably not more than a week or two away.”

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According to Morningstar Direct data, the launch of Bitcoin-based ETFs in the US in January was a major success, drawing around $8 billion in assets. By late June, these nine new products had nearly $38 billion in assets, although the holdings of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust – which converted its $27 billion BTC trust into an ETF simultaneously – dipped to $17.8 billion.

However, experts believe the launch of the new spot Ethereum ETFs may not be as impressive as the Bitcoin ETF debut. James Butterfill, head of research at Coinshares, noted that “Ethereum is not the same size in terms of market cap, nor does it have the same volumes” as BTC.

Given the differences in market size and nature of the two cryptocurrencies, Bryan Armour, an ETF analyst at Morningstar, believes inflows may be much more muted when the Ethereum ETFs launch.

“With Bitcoin, there had been pent-up demand for a decade, and investor interest was off the charts,” Armour said. “This just isn’t going to command the same excitement.” However, not everyone shares the same cautious outlook. 

ETH Eyes Potential Rally Toward $7,500

Quinn Thompson, the founder and CIO of Lekker Capital, has recently stated that the market is in the middle of “one of the most obvious and attractive crypto buying opportunities of recent memory.” 

Thompson further claimed that it was “cool” to be bullish in the past, but now, it appears that “Twitter has become a contest to see who can have the most negative ETH ETF take.” Thompson further noted:

Personally, I think ETH will reach $7,000 and BTC will make its first attempt at $100,000 by the election in November.

The Glassnode co-founders also shared a bullish price analysis for Ether, stating that if investors look at Ether’s history, similar patterns are developing as in the early stages of the 2021 bull market. 

They believe the current structure gives a target of around $7,500 as a final high for Ether, mirroring the Fibonacci extension seen in 2021 and implying a strong rally in Ether “soon!”

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While caution remains regarding the possibility of further price declines, experts argue that such a scenario would require a new exogenous event to occur. Overall, market sentiment is leaning towards Ethereum reaching $7,000 and Bitcoin’s first attempt at $100,000.

At the time of writing, ETH was trading at $3,460, up more than 3% over the past 24 hours as the broader market recovers from the corrections seen over the weekend and into the beginning of the week. 

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com