‘Wen solana ETF?’ — Franklin Templeton raises hopes after lauding blockchain

Trillion-dollar asset manager Franklin Templeton says it's “impressed” with the recent growth of the Solana network.
Brayden Lindrea
Posted by Brayden Lindrea January 18, 2024 3 Mins Read
Trillion-dollar asset manager Franklin Templeton says it's “impressed” with the recent growth of the Solana network.

Trillion-dollar asset management firm Franklin Templeton’s recent praise for the Solana network on X (Twitter) has sparked new hope for a potential Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the distant future.

In a Jan. 16 social media post, the asset manager’s official X account — which was temporarily manned by the firm’s digital asset team — said it was “impressed” by numerous developments in the Solana ecosystem under Anatoly Yakovenko’s leadership.

“We see Anatoly’s vision of a single atomic state machine as a powerful use case of decentralized blockchains, lowering information asymmetry,” Franklin said on Jan. 17.

The firm listed the growth in decentralized finance (DeFi), infrastructure networks, nonfungible token innovations, and even memecoins among Solana’s most notable developments in the last quarter alone.

The firm even went as far as making a joke about changing its current laser-eye emblazoned profile picture on X to one where Benjamin Franklin would sport a knitted hat, referencing a new memecoin on Solana “dogwifhat.”

While the asset manager also referenced the Ethereum network, Bitcoin Ordinals, BTC-based Layer-2s, and “other L1s,” but most of the praise from Franklin Templeton’s digital assets team appeared directed at Solana.

The Solana-skewed praise caused many users on Crypto X to hope Franklin Templeton may look to issue a Solana ETF product in the future.

“Ok guys. Solana ETF is next,” wrote pseudonymous X user nxxn.

Meanwhile, a post from Bitcoin advocate “Lex” hinted that a Solana-based ETF may only be a matter of time.

Since launching spot Bitcoin ETFs on Jan. 11, many in the industry are hopeful that other crypto assets could become featured in a United States spot crypto ETF, including Ether (ETH) and XRP. 

Several spot Ether ETFs are now awaiting approval by the SEC, many of which will receive a final decision by the U.S. securities regulator around May, according to analysts.

Related: Blockchain adoption ‘accelerating very quickly’ in big finance — Franklin Templeton exec

While Franklin Templeton hasn’t filed a spot Ether ETF itself, it has shared positive sentiment toward the Ethereum ecosystem.

“We are excited about ETH and its ecosystem. Despite the midlife crisis it's recently experienced, we see a bright future with many strong tailwinds to push the Ethereum ecosystem forward,” Franklin said in a follow-up post on X.

Protodank Sharding — a mechanism allowing rollups to add cheaper data to blocks — via EIP-4844 and restaking — the process of recycling staked Ether to earn fees and rewards — were two of the four developments Franklin said it was “excited” about on Ethereum.

Franklin said it is continuing to monitor other layer 1 blockchains. The firm didn’t name which networks but said some have “massive potential.”

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