By Frances Yue
Major cryptocurrencies tumbled on Friday
Crypto bulls were buzzing with anticipation that several major Wall Street firms would win approval this week to launch exchange-traded funds investing in solana, a lesser-known cryptocurrency. But a partial U.S. government shutdown has thrown the process into limbo.
The Securities and Exchange Commission faced a Friday deadline to make a decision on the applications of ETFs investing in solana (SOLUSD), which were filed by firms such as Fidelity, Franklin Templeton (BEN) and Invesco (IVZ). If the agency approves the ETFs, it would mark another milestone as digital assets become increasingly mainstream.
Solana is the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and is often seen as a strong competitor to ether (ETHUSD), as both blockchains underpinning them allow people to build decentralized applications.
Investors had widely anticipated the SEC to greenlight the solana ETFs. However, the partial U.S. government shutdown, which began on Oct. 1, has thrown the timeline into uncertainty, as the SEC will not review and approve ETF applications during the lapse.
A SEC spokesperson told MarketWatch that the agency is currently operating in accordance with its plan for functioning during a government shutdown. That plan says the SEC will maintain a narrow set of essential functions during the shutdown, while many normal functions will be halted.
“The SEC will not review and approve applications for registration by entities (e.g., investment advisers, broker-dealers, transfer agents, nationally recognized statistical rating organizations, investment companies and municipal advisors) or with respect to new financial products,” it said.
This will likely lead to delays on crypto ETF decisions, according to Roxanna Islam, head of sector and industry research at VettaFi.
“Once the government reopens, I’m not sure [about the timeline]. I guess we don’t really have that clarity of when, in what order and how fast they will approve [the ETFs],” she said. “I think it will still be this year. I don’t think it’s going to be delayed that long, but we’re going to have to wait until the government reopens to see any progress in this.”
While the SEC approved an ETF investing directly solana in July, the fund was issued by a lesser-known firm and structured in a different way. The SEC has also approved a few ETFs that invest in multiple different crypto assets, including solana.
But it’s not just about solana. The SEC also faces deadlines later this month to make decisions on applications of ETFs tied to XRP (XRPUSD), dogecoin (DOGEUSD) and cardano (ADAUSD). Those cryptocurrencies are the fifth-, eighth- and 10th-largest tokens by market cap, respectively, according to CryptoMarketCap.
Once the government resumes functioning, it’s highly likely that those applications will be approved, Islam and several other market participants told MarketWatch.
In particular, the applications may benefit from a rule change that the SEC approved in September, which enabled the New York Stock Exchange (ICE), Nasdaq (NDAQ) and Cboe Global Markets (CBOE) exchanges to adopt generic listing standards for new crypto ETFs and other spot commodity exchange-traded products, without case-by-case SEC rulemaking reviews.
The change could result in much less friction in listing new spot crypto ETFs, and cut the maximum time for a new ETF from filing to launch to 75 days, from 240 days or longer, according to Adrian Fritz, global head of research at crypto asset manager 21Shares.
However, the delay in SEC approval because of the government shutdown may potentially weigh on the demand facing such products, VettaFi’s Islam said.
“You might get tired of waiting for it,” she noted. “I mean, people have been waiting almost eight months, and then you see delays – it’s just getting delayed further and further.”
That could potentially lead to some downward price action, which nevertheless may reverse once the ETFs are approved, she added.
Solana fell 7.9% to around $183.27 on Friday afternoon, according to FactSet data. XRP tumbled 19.53% to $2.03, while dogecoin plunged 12.35% to $0.22. In comparison, bitcoin declined 4.1% Friday afternoon to around $111,917.
Fritz, on the other hand, argued that exchange-traded products tied to smaller cryptocurrencies have seen significant inflows in Europe and Canada in the past few weeks, in anticipation of the potential ETF approvals in the U.S.
The delay due to the shutdown, he noted, may “make the buildup even better.”
-Frances Yue
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10-10-25 1810ET
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