Franklin Templeton Registers Solana Trust in Delaware, Signaling Plans to Launch Spot ETF in the US

A filing to Delaware's corporate regulator shows the “Franklin Solana Trust” was formed on Feb. 10 by the CSC Delaware Trust Company.

Asset manager Franklin Templeton has registered a trust in Delaware that is linked to a proposed spot Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF). This registration suggests that Franklin Templeton may soon apply to launch the fund in the United States.

According to a filing with Delaware’s corporate regulator, the “Franklin Solana Trust” was established on Feb. 10 by CSC Delaware Trust Company. The CSC Delaware Trust Company has previously registered crypto trust products for other asset managers, including Bitwise.

After registering their crypto trust products in Delaware, some asset managers, such as 21Shares, submitted Form S-1 for their products to the SEC the following day.

If approved, the Franklin Solana Trust would aim to track the price movement of Solana (SOL), the world’s fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, which currently stands at $97 billion, according to CoinGecko.

The filing does not specify which exchange would list the ETF. However, Franklin Templeton’s spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) ETFs are both listed on the NYSE Arca exchange.

Franklin Templeton has expressed positive views on the Solana network and ecosystem on multiple occasions. In July, the asset manager highlighted Solana’s ability to overcome “technological growing pains” and showcase the high-transaction throughput of monolithic blockchains.

Earlier, in January 2024, Franklin also pointed to the strong growth in Solana’s decentralized finance apps and dominant memecoin activity.

notably acknowledged the Form 19b-4 filings for spot Solana ETFs by 21Shares, Bitwise, Canary Capital and VanEck on Feb. 11.

Furthermore, the SEC had also acknowledged Grayscale’s Solana filing on Feb. 6 — a development that ETF analyst at Bloomberg ETF, James Seyffart, highlighted as newsworthy. This is because the SEC reportedly rejected several applications in December under former Chair Gary Gensler.

However, Seyffart noted that the status of Solana as a security will also need to be resolved before the SEC can analyze it under a “commodities ETF wrapper.”