Matthew Sigel, the head of digital assets research at investment giant VanEck, has confirmed that his firm’s Solana (SOL) exchange-traded fund (ETF) filing is a bet on Donald Trump winning the presidency.
VanEck became the first company in the United States to file for a SOL ETF when it submitted an S-1 registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said he thought the filing was “a call option on the POTUS election.”
“The knee-jerk reaction here is: ‘oh, this will never be approved because there aren’t Solana futures.’ Agree, but if [there’s a] change at POTUS (President of the United States) I think anything [is] possible. Just imagine [Commissioner on the SEC] Hester Peirce (or someone like that) running the SEC.”
Sigel confirmed Balchunas’ speculation on the social media platform X on Monday.
Trump’s recent claims he will serve as “the crypto president” have earned him the support of numerous digital asset stakeholders who perceive the Biden Administration as having been hostile towards the sector.
The former president has not always been a fan of crypto, however: In May 2018, while serving in the Oval Office, he reportedly directed then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to “go after Bitcoin [for fraud].”
Three years later, Trump said in an interview that he owned zero cryptocurrencies, arguing that digital assets were “a disaster waiting to happen.”
VanEck’s ETF, which would be called the VanEck Solana Trust, would be listed on the Cboe BZX Exchange if it’s approved. The fintech firm 21Shares also filed for a SOL ETF last week.
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