You Won’t Believe What Canadians Are Staking Now: First Solana ETF Hits TSX! 🚀

If you thought the only excitement on a Wednesday morning in Toronto was the hockey score or maybe a maple syrup spill downtown, think again. Right at 9:30 AM EST—when decent folks are starting their second cup of coffee—3iQ Corp. and Figment are hitching up their wagons and rolling out the Solana Staking ETF (TSX: SOLQ) on the Toronto Stock Exchange. And let me tell you, that’s a sight you don’t see every day—unless you live next to a crypto farm, which I likely wouldn’t recommend.

Now, you may be wondering, just what in tarnation is this? Well, they’re calling it the first native Solana (SOL) staking rewards ETF in all of North America. If you’re not a “crypto-native” (which, for most folks, means you have at least three screens and a severe caffeine habit), you might have thought staking was just something you did to vampires. Apparently, with SOLQ, you can get your hands on Solana’s famous staking yield—without needing to memorize twelve secret words, fight goblins, or run any validator gadgets in your cellar.

Responsibility for this fine operation falls to Figment, veteran Solana wranglers and certified genesis validators (which, near as I can tell, means they were there before it was cool). Figment says they’ll handle all the tricky stuff for the ETF so you won’t have to get your hands dirty—or your passwords phished.

Figment’s not just whistlin’ Dixie either. They claim to be saddled up with over $15 billion in assets spread across more than 40 blockchains. That’s more protocols than you can shake a stick at! Add in a “perfect slashing prevention record” (translated: haven’t tripped a security wire yet) and 700+ big-money clients, and you might start to feel safer with them than with your Uncle Earl’s old mattress.

Lorien Gabel, the Figment bossman, says they’re offering “sustainable staking yields” to folks who’d rather keep their fingers free for typing angry tweets than for running their own nodes. I personally prefer my yields unsustainable and delivered with pie, but to each their own.

3iQ: The Trailblazers of TradFi Blockchain Shenanigans

3iQ isn’t new to raising eyebrows on Bay Street. They’ve been slinging digital asset products like pancake breakfasts at a church fundraiser. Last year, they rolled out the world’s first Ether Staking ETF, which got as much attention as a stray raccoon in a Tim Hortons. And before that, they fired up the Bitcoin ETF (TSX: BTCQ)—the first time anyone managed to slap a Bitcoin ETP on a serious global exchange and not get run out of town.

As Pascal St-Jean, the head honcho of 3iQ, puts it: “We are proud to continue our tradition of innovation.” (I’d wager he’s proud enough to frame it and hang it over his desk.) Says their new Solana ETF is all about “aligning with top-tier partners” to “unlock the full value of the digital asset ecosystem.” In plain English: they’ve found someone else to help hold the shovel.

So there you have it: the wild, wild north just got a little wilder—now with fewer secret passwords, more acronyms than a railroad timetable, and, for once, nary a single moose in sight. 📈🤑

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2025-04-16 00:57