Half of all assets sitting in US spot Solana exchange-traded funds are owned by large institutional investors — a sign that serious money, not just retail traders, has been driving demand since the products launched last fall.
Wall Street Names Top The List
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart released data this week drawn from 13F filings submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission in mid-February.
Those filings, required of any institution managing more than $100 million in assets, show that the 30 biggest holders of US spot Solana ETFs accumulated more than $540 million worth of positions during the fourth quarter of 2024.
Electric Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, held the largest stake at close to 138 million. Goldman Sachs came in second at $1074 million. Elequin Capital, SIG Holding, and Multicoin Capital rounded out the top five. Morgan Stanley and Citadel Advisors were also among the buyers.
Who were the buyers of those Solana ETFs? The top of the list is a who’s who of market makers and crypto investment firms. https://t.co/NHu9ul4nt1 pic.twitter.com/aFI0CLubB1
— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) March 9, 2026
Investment advisors made up the biggest slice of that total, accounting for more than $270 million in holdings. Hedge fund managers followed at $186.4 million. Holding companies and brokerage firms held nearly $60 million and $20 million, respectively. Banks trailed the group at $4.5 million.
A Rough Start On Price
The first US spot Solana ETF went live on October 28, when Bitwise received SEC approval and began trading. Other products followed. Since then, cumulative inflows across all US-listed spot Solana ETFs have reached more than $950 million, according to data from Farside Investors — a figure that covers retail and smaller institutions not captured in the 13F filings.
But the timing hasn’t been kind on price. Those Q4 institutional positions were backed by roughly 4.3 million SOL tokens, which were valued at around $124.95 each at year-end. By the time Seyffart shared his analysis, SOL had dropped to $86.50 — a decline of more than 30%.
Source: Farside Investors
Flows Hold Even As Token Drops
Despite the slide in price, money has kept moving in. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted last week that net flows into Solana ETFs have stayed relatively steady in recent months, even as the token itself fell.
He also flagged that the 50% institutional ownership figure points to a buyer base that skews toward deliberate, longer-term positioning rather than short-term trading.
The data covers only the fourth quarter. Updated filings for the first quarter of 2025 won’t be available until mid-May, so how institutions have responded to the price drop won’t be clear for several more weeks.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
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