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VanEck, a global investment management firm, filed a form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Aug. 22 to launch a spot exchange-traded fund tied to JitoSOL, a Solana-based liquid staking token (LST).
Before venturing further, it is important to understand what liquid staking in crypto means.
Crypto staking is the process of locking up your crypto assets like Solana and Ethereum to help secure a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain in exchange for rewards. Liquid staking takes the process further by letting you stake your crypto assets without locking them up so that they remain liquid and available for trading. What happens is that as you stake your crypto assets, you receive a tokenized version of these assets, such as sSOL. These tokens can be traded as your originally staked assets earn you rewards.
The Jito Foundation said the filing for the spot VanEck JitoSOL ETF is the culmination of "months of collaborative policy outreach efforts" to regulators such as the SEC. The team met with the SEC's crypto task force on Feb. 5 and discussed allowing staking in crypto ETFs.
While the SEC mulled the matter over the next months, it issued a few surprising updates.
On May 29, the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance said protocol staking activities don't involve the offer and sale of securities. On Aug. 5, the Division said certain liquid staking activities associated with protocol staking don't involve the offer and sale of securities. The offer and sale of "Staking Receipt Tokens" don't constitute the sale of securities unless the deposited (originally staked) crypto assets are part of or subject to an investment contract, the statement read.
VanEck's latest filing for an LST comes only a fortnight after the SEC's statement on liquid staking. SOL was trading at $196.87 at the time of writing, up more than 8.5% a day.
However, the SEC's analyses of crypto activities haven't been codified into law through a formal rule-making process, so they can change under new leadership.
This article has been published in thestreet.com via Yahoo News.
VanEck fires off crypto ETF bid after surprising SEC shift
VanEck applied for a spot JitoSOL ETF.
finance.yahoo.com
