Category: Canada

3iQ Corp. has tapped Figment as the primary staking provider for its new Solana Staking ETF (TSX: SOLQ), which officially launches on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Wednesday at 9:30 AM EST.

The announcement represents the first product of its kind in North America to incorporate native Solana (SOL) staking rewards into an exchange-traded format.

SOLQ gives investors regulated, exchange-traded access to Solana’s native staking yield, traditionally reserved for crypto-native users who either run validator nodes or delegate tokens to existing validators, without the complexity of self-custody or direct protocol interaction.

Figment, a longtime Solana ecosystem player and one of its genesis validators, will handle staking operations on behalf of the ETF.

The company brings a robust infrastructure to the table: over $15 billion in assets staked across 40+ protocols, a perfect slashing prevention record, and a client base of over 700 institutional partners.

“By combining institutional-grade staking infrastructure with traditional investment vehicles, we’re making sustainable staking yields accessible to a new class of investors,” said Lorien Gabel, CEO and co-founder of Figment.

3iQ continues its push into staking ETFs

This move builds on 3iQ’s history of pioneering digital asset products in traditional markets. The firm previously launched the world’s first Ether Staking ETF in 2023, and the Bitcoin ETF (TSX: BTCQ), which became the first Bitcoin ETP to trade on a major global stock exchange.

“At 3iQ, we are proud to continue our tradition of innovation,” said 3iQ President and CEO Pascal St-Jean. “This product reinforces our commitment to aligning with top-tier partners who share our vision for unlocking the full value of the digital asset ecosystem.”

While U.S. issuers are still waiting for the approval of a spot Solana (SOL) exchange-traded fund (ETF), Canadian investors will be able to trade such funds on the Toronto Stock Exchange starting Wednesday.

Four asset managers are set to bring their product to the market, including Purpose, Evolve, CI and 3iQ, all of which will have staking abilities as well, according to a TD Cowen note shared by ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.

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The funds were approved by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) on Monday, according to the note.

Meanwhile, issuers in the U.S., including Grayscale, Franklin Templeton, 21Shares, Bitwise, VanEck and Fidelity, are still waiting for the green light from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a spot Solana fund.

There are currently two ETFs tracking SOL futures trading on U.S. markets, the Volatility Shares Solana ETF (SOLZ) and the Volatility Shares 2X Solana ETF (SOLT), both of which have attracted a relatively small amount of assets, around $5 million for SOLZ and $10 million for SOLT.

The spot crypto ETFs, however, have seen immense success among investors, attracting multiple billions of dollars over the course of a year, with the bitcoin (BTC) ETFs becoming the most successful ETF launch in history.