The SEC Gets an LST: VanEck Pitches a JitoSOL ETF for Your DeFi-Lite Portfolio

Nasdaq has just slid a fresh regulatory proposal across the SEC's desk, formally requesting a rule change to list the VanEck JitoSOL ETF. Announced on Aug. 22, 2025, this would be the first Solana spot ETF to be fully backed by a liquid staking token (LST), aiming to track JitoSOL through the MarketVector JitoSol VWAP Close Index—because in TradFi, even a perfectly composable asset needs a bespoke index to feel legitimate.

Here’s the liquid-staking elevator pitch for the uninitiated: SOL holders lock their coins, receive tradable JitoSOL tokens as a receipt, and keep racking up on-chain staking rewards without the hassle of running a validator node. These JitoSOL tokens can then be traded like any other crypto, while the original SOL continues to quietly print yield in the background—like a money printer you never have to oil.

The filing strategically cites the SEC’s own “generic listing standards” from September, waving around impressively high correlation stats like a degen flashing a rare NFT. It highlights near-perfect price hugs: hourly correlations of ~0.9979 on OKX and ~0.9985 on Coinbase. The core argument is that JitoSOL is economically identical to plain SOL, so this ETF shouldn’t introduce any new pricing risks beyond what’s already baked into the existing, approved Solana ETF framework.

The SEC now has a standard 45-day window to give a thumbs-up, or it can hit the snooze button and extend the review to 90 days. Jito Foundation president Brian Smith pointed out that, should it get the green light, staking rewards would simply auto-compound into the fund’s net asset value instead of being distributed separately—a set-it-and-forget-it yield strategy for the paper-handed investor.

This filing is the culmination of months of policy schmoozing with regulators and is currently in the exchange-review phase. No LST-backed fund currently trades in the U.S., though the concept of bundling spot exposure with staking yield isn't entirely novel: the REX-Osprey Solana + Staking ETF (SSK) launched in early July, its ETH counterpart (ESK) debuted in September, and Grayscale added staking to its Ethereum and Solana ETFs in October. The race to offer the laziest possible yield is officially on.