Solana Staking ETF Due To Take Off

Daily Updates:

• A new cryptocurrency ETF is set to be launched from Wednesday this week, and will be the first such ETF in the US that will allow for staking. 
• The REX-Osprey SOL + Staking ETF will not just give exposure to the underlying asset it tracks, Solana, but will also allow investors earn staking rewards by deploying Solana tokens to help validate transactions on the network. 
• This marks a landmark change in the ETF space as it is not only the first ETF that will directly hold SOL tokens, but also the first ETF to offer staking in the US. 
• According to its SEC filing, “The Fund seeks to invest a majority of its assets directly in the Reference Asset [SOL] and seeks to stake at least 50% of its holdings in the Reference Asset.”
• SOL’s spot price jumped last evening on the announcement, moving up almost vertically from $150 to $158. However those gains have since pared back and the token is trading at just under $150 again. 

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• The rest of the crypto market largely remains range bound. BTC is trading slightly below $107K while ETH is trading just under $2,500. Over the past 24 hours, implied volatility across the term structure for BTC and ETH has fallen – a move that has been most pronounced at shorter-tenors. 
• As such, the 7-day ATM ratio of ETH IV against BTC IV has dropped below the value of 2 (now currently 1.8), as front-end ETH volatility has declined at a slightly faster pace than similar-dated BTC options. 
• Short-tenor volatility smiles which had maintained a neutral skew over the past few days have now also shifted towards a premium for OTM puts for short-dated ETH options. 

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• On Wall Street however, animal spirits continued to push the S&P 500 higher yesterday, giving the index its best quarterly performance since December 2023. The benchmark S&P 500 index has now rallied a remarkable 25% from its April lows earlier in the year. 
• While stocks are at record highs, the US dollar on the other hand posted its worst start to a year since 2005, down -11% year-to-date. 
• Gold prices rose 0.6% to $3,300/ oz, bringing the current year-to-date performance at 27.3%.

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• Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expects a “flurry [of trade deals] going into the final week” of the July 9 tariff deadline with key trading partners. 
• Regarding the Fed, Bessent also said “we have seen no inflation from tariffs, if we do, which we don’t have to, then there would be a one-time price adjustment. Nothing is more transitory than that”. 
• “Team transitory, having failed the American people in 22, they seem a little frozen at the wheel here”. 

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• Centrifuge, a blockchain infrastructure firm focused on real-world asset tokenization, today announced a partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) to bring the S&P 500 onchain.
• This launch introduces proof-of-index infrastructure for tokenized products and rolls out the first blockchain-based S&P 500 Index Fund, powered by official S&P data and smart contracts.

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• James Seyffart, a crypto ETFs analyst at Bloomberg, has announced updated approval odds of 95% for Spot ETFs on Solana, Litecoin and XRP by the end of 2025. 
• Meanwhile, several other altcoins – including Dogecoin and Cardano – are also positioned with high probabilities at 90%.

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• American Bitcoin, a proprietary crypto mining firm linked to Hut 8 and backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump has raised over $220M in a private equity round with approximately $10 million of the offering being settled in Bitcoin, using a valuation of $104,000 per BTC.
• "The Company intends to use the net proceeds to fund its strategic and Bitcoin accumulation goals, which may include, but are not limited to, the purchase of Bitcoin and/or miners".

This Week’s Calendar:

Charts of the Day:

Figure 1. BTC at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes

Figure 2. ETH at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes

Figure 3. BTC 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes

Figure 4. ETH 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes