Solana staking ETFs are ‘missing part of puzzle’: Bitwise CIO

Solana staking exchange-traded funds have a promising future on traditional stock exchanges after Bitwise’s fund debut on the New York Stock Exchange surpassed $56 million in first-day trading volume.

Matt Hougan, Bitwise chief investment officer, described the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL) as “the missing part of the puzzle” in conversation with Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction daily show, as the product attracted millions of dollars in investment on the NYSE.

So, Solana Staking ETF totalled $56M in trading volume after its debut on 💰

As reported, it’s the biggest ETF debut in 2026. described as “the missing part of the puzzle”.

Here’s why staking ETFs WILL attract…

— Gareth Jenkinson (@gazza_jenks)

Hougan said that until this point, investors stood to gain more by owning Solana in ways that allowed them to directly stake the asset and earn yield than invest in an ETF or product that didn’t allow for staking.

“Once you put it into an ETF, you get all the great things about an ETF. Extremely low costs, institutional custody. You can purchase it in your brokerage account. It’s push-button easy. And you get that staking done for you,” Hougan said.

“I think it’s going to become one of the primary ways that people invest in Solana, globally. I think it’s that big a deal.”

Investors want custody AND staking yield

Hougan unpacked the difference between conventional crypto ETFs like Bitcoin and Ethereum products, which primarily give investors exposure to the underlying asset. Staking ETFs have a twofold benefit for investors, as Hougan explained.

“So as an investor in something like $BSOL, not only are you getting the returns of Solana, but every year you get somewhere around 7% of additional Solana on top of that. For a TradFi investor, it’s a little bit like a dividend in an oversimplified sense.”

Hougan said the product also helps decentralize and secure the Solana network. The $BSOL ETF launched $222 million in assets, amounting to over 1.1 million SOL tokens. 

Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas reported that Bitwise’s SOL staking ETF had the largest trading volume of any ETF on debut in 2025.

Regulatory change made Solana staking ETFs possible

Hougan also credited a regulatory U-turn in the US as a catalyst for the eventual greenlight for Solana staking ETFs. During Gary Gensler’s term at the helm of the SEC, Bitcoin and Ether ETFs took years to get the regulatory green light.

The Bitwise executive said that Solana staking ETFs would not have been “even remotely possible” if there had not been a significant change in attitude toward the cryptocurrency sector from US regulators.

“Even just Solana unstaked was impossible, right? We barely got Ethereum through the Gary Gensler pinhole,” Hougan said. “And there was no way you were going to get anything else through that pinhole. And then to add staking on top of it, staking is more complex.”

He said a number of complexities also stumped regulators, including liquidity and tax implications. However, the launch of BSOL and Grayscale’s Solana Trust ETF (GSOL) could well open the door for other TradFi investment products linked to proof-of-stake protocols.

“Not only have we done it now, but this also opens the door for a variety of other ETPs to launch that have staking as well. So this is like a major proof-of-concept in the history of crypto ETPs in the US.”