Figment, Apex to List Ether and Solana Staking ETPs on SIX Swiss Exchange

• Figment Europe and Apex Group plan to list Ethereum and Solana staking ETPs on SIX Swiss Exchange next week.
• The ETPs will allow investors to take exposure to ether and solana prices while earning staking rewards, including maximum extractable value.

Figment Europe, an institutional staking services provider, and Apex Group, a global financial services provider based in Bermuda, plan to introduce exchange-traded products (ETPs) that give investors exposure to ether ETH$3,108.37 and solana SOL$133.45 prices along with additional rewards from staking.

The two funds, Figment Ethereum Plus Staking Rewards (ETHF) and Figment Solana Plus Staking Rewards (SOLF), will be 100% backed at all times and will debut on the SIX Swiss Exchange on March 12, the companies said Thursday.

The ETPs will provide investors exposure to ether and solana prices and additional staking rewards, including maximum extractable value (MEV), while bypassing complexities involved in staking as individuals. Staking yields will be reinvested into the ETPs to enhance their performance. MEV is the value derived from reordering transactions within the blocks over the standard block reward and gas fees.

The announcement comes on the heels of a January decision by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to greenlight nearly a dozen spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Since then, the ETFs have drawn in billions of dollars in a sign of strong institutional appetite for digital assets. Spot-based products have been available in many European countries for some time, and ETC Group introduced a similar staking ETP earlier this month on Deutsche Boerse.

While the terms ETP and ETF are often used interchangeably, the two are different. In the U.S., ETF is used for all exchange-traded products looking to track the performance of an underlying asset. European regulations recommend using the term ETP for single assets like bitcoin.

The ETPs' structure will particularly appeal to conservative institutions looking to access staking rewards without directly funding Ethereum and Solana validators. In proof-of-stake blockchains like Ethereum and Solana, users lock the native tokens to help validate transactions in return for rewards. The process is analogous to investing in fixed-income securities like bonds.

"The popularity and interest in ETH and SOL has increased substantially over the past few months," Josh Deems, head of institutional business development for Figment, said in the statement. "However, it is still challenging for institutions to buy crypto and stake directly. The ETPs will contribute to an increased accessibility to staking rewards for a wide audience, and we at Figment are proud that Apex and Issuance.Swiss chose Figment to be part of this development."

Figment's ETPs are powered by Issuance.Swiss AG, a turnkey product for listing financial products like ETPs. Both products will charge a management fee of 1.5% and will track an index provided by MarketVector, which tracks coin price performance and staking rewards.