SOL Hits $161 After ETF News, Is It Just Hype?

Key takeaways:

• The Solana ETF launch with staking drew initial excitement, but institutional demand remains muted.

• Ongoing SOL unlocks, DApp sell-offs, and low network activity weigh against a sustained price rally.

Solana’s native token, SOL (SOL), surged 7% on Monday after confirmation that the first-ever Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF) featuring staking capabilities would launch on Wednesday. This news prompted traders to speculate whether it could spur institutional demand and propel SOL’s price above $200.

SOL initially rallied to $161, but adjusted to $157, a 4% gain from 24 hours prior. The ETF provider REX Shares partnered with Osprey Funds to establish a taxable C-corporation, bypassing the typical US Securities and Exchange Commission approval process. This is unlike the standard Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) spot ETFs available in the United States.

This structure enables a much faster and smoother launch, a path commonly used by energy infrastructure partnerships. However, it differs from standard cryptocurrency ETFs in terms of tax efficiency, as the REX-Osprey SOL + Staking ETF taxes dividend income at both the corporate and investor levels.

After some initial excitement, SOL traders recalibrated their expectations as they recognized that similar instruments could be launched for nearly every altcoin. Moreover, Grayscale’s Solana Trust (GSOL), which has traded for over two years, manages only about $75 million in assets.

For comparison, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) held $10 billion in assets under management one month before the actual launch of the spot Ethereum ETF in July 2024. This substantial gap indicates that, regardless of staking capability, institutional demand is unlikely to have a significant impact on SOL’s price.

SOL price limited by staking unlocks, competition and DApp selling

Even if Solana secures a first-mover advantage for a few months, this effect could be offset by SOL staking unlocks and selling pressure from some of Solana’s decentralized applications (DApps). According to DefiLlama, about $585 million worth of SOL will be unlocked from staking over the next two months.

Additionally, some of Solana’s most successful DApps have regularly sold off their SOL holdings. For example, the token launch platform Pump transferred over $404 million worth of SOL to exchanges in 2025 alone, as reported by Onchain Lens.

This activity helps explain why SOL’s performance has largely matched that of competitors ETH and BNB over a 30-day period despite the inherently bullish ETF news.

The SOL futures funding rate provides insight into traders’ positioning. When there is excessive demand for bullish leverage, this indicator can jump above 10% per year. Conversely, during bearish periods, funding rates turn negative as short sellers pay to keep their positions open.

Despite a 12.5% gain over four days, SOL’s funding rate has failed to break above the neutral 10% threshold. The current price of $157 remains 47% below the all-time high of $295, and onchain data indicates no recovery in network activity. Even with hype surrounding memecoins, Solana’s network revenue has dropped by over 90% since January.

Related: Tokenized stock trading live on Kraken, Bybit and Solana’s DeFi ecosystem

The fact that Robinhood selected an Ethereum layer-2 network to launch tokenized stock trading has also diminished Solana’s appeal as the preferred solution for high-output DApps. Similarly, Coinbase partnered with Shopify on June 12 to introduce onchain payments on the Base network, which ultimately settles transactions on the Ethereum base layer.

At the moment, there is little evidence that the Solana ETF launch will drive a SOL rally to $200, given increased competition and the lack of demand for currently listed Solana Trust instruments.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.