Fidelity Investments has filed a pre-effective amendment for its Solana ETF with the Securities and Exchange Commission, moving the registration to automatic effectiveness.
The file reveals that the fund will rely on all its GROUND holdings to generate returns above the Fidelity Solana benchmark rate while charging an annual fee of 0.25%, waived entirely for the first six months after launch.
This update pushes Fidelity into a rapidly expanding Solana ETF market, which has already seen three products debut on U.S. exchanges, capturing combined first-day inflows exceeding $81 million.
Fidelity Structures Aggressive Staking Strategy
The Fidelity Solana Fund will stake up to 100% of its SOL tokens through custodians Anchorage Digital, BitGo and Coinbase Custody, with node operators including Coinbase Crypto Services and Figment.
Staking rewards will be subject to a 15% fee split between the sponsor, custodians and operators, with the Trust required to withdraw SOL within two days when necessary for redemptions.
The fund will trade under the symbol FSOL on an undisclosed exchange, offering creation and redemption baskets of 25,000 shares settled in SOL or cash.
To support this dual settlement approach, Fidelity has entered into commercial agreements with counterparties, including Cumberland DRW, Jane Street Capital affiliates and Virtu Americas, to facilitate liquidity creation.
Despite the ambitious structure, the filing acknowledges substantial regulatory risk, noting that the SEC has previously classified SOL as collateral in enforcement actions. However, some cases have been closed or dismissed.
The filing warns that a final classification of securities could have an immediate material impact on SOL’s trading value and potentially force liquidation of the fund.
Bitwise dominates the first market
As Fidelity prepares to enter, the early movers have already captured significant market share.
Bitwise’s Solana ETF captured $69.5 million in its Oct. 28 debut, nearly six times the $12 million raised by Rex-Osprey’s competing product.
The Bitwise Solana Fund holds 100% of the holdings in-house to provide the full network return while charging a 0.20% management fee, waived for three months.
A day later, Grayscale launched its Solana Trust ETF on NYSE Arca, converting a 2021 private trust holding 525,387 SOL tokens.
The fund has an expense ratio of 0.35% and invests 74.89% of assets, passing on 77% of staking rewards to investors on a net basis.
@Grayscale launches Solana ETF on NYSE Arca, becoming third U.S. product as institutional adoption of proof-of-stake blockchains accelerates.#Solana #ETFhttps://t.co/57ppRE2y1e
– Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) October 29, 2025
Meanwhile, Rex-Osprey’s SSK employs a hybrid structure holding 54% in direct Solana, 43.5% in a Swiss-listed CoinShares ETP, with the remainder in JitoSOL and cash.
The fund distributes monthly staking rewards, which are treated as a return of capital for tax purposes, while charging an expense ratio of 0.75%.
Institutional Appetite Tests Layer 1 Balance of Power
Speaking to Cryptonews, Maria Carola, CEO of StealthEX, considers the Solana ETF wave a defining moment in blockchain competition.
“The launch of a spot ETF on Solana is a signal that has erupted in the long battle for dominance in the layer 1 blockchain space,” she said.
“For the first time, institutional investors are invited to consider Solana as a standalone macro asset.“
Carola notes that projections of $3 billion in ETF inflows over 12 to 18 months depend on Solana maintaining its momentum in 2024 on DeFi expansion and network stability.
“Solana’s story is one of speed, scalability and technical precision, but for many market participants it remains a symbol of short-term liquidity cycles and the fleeting hype of meme tokens,” she said. “An ETF alone will not change this perception overnight.“
It recognizes Ethereum’s dominant position, with over $60 billion locked in DeFi and a mature staking ecosystem that continues to attract institutional capital seeking predictability.
“In the long term, it is Ethereum’s fundamentals, such as stability, institutional reputation, and integration into the global financial system, that maintain its leadership.“said Carola.
However, it proposes a model of coexistence in which “Ethereum serves as the underlying trust and settlement layer in the on-chain economy, while Solana becomes its high-performance execution engine.“
Despite positive sentiment around ETF launches, the near-term price action of SOL remains uncertain.
Polymarket gives Solana just a 25% chance (down 2% from yesterday) of hitting a new all-time high before 2026, with SOL trading at $196, up almost 1% over 24 hours.
Beyond U.S. markets, the Solana ETF’s momentum follows Hong Kong’s October approval of China Asset Management’s spot fund, which began trading on Oct. 27 with a minimum investment of $100.
The article Wall Street’s Solana Bet Advances as Fidelity Updates ETF Filing appeared first on Cryptonews.
