The NASDAQ has been bringing crypto and traditional investing together since 2025.
With the June 7 filing of a standard K-8 fund, the Nasdaq noted that its standard Nasdaq Crypto US Settlement Price Index (NCIUS) would add four new cryptos – Cardano, Solana, Stellar Lumens, and XRP Ledger – to its current roster of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The move sets up the potential for the first-ever multi-asset crypto ETF, and signals crypto’s continued ascension to the upper ranks of the financial world.
The news comes on the back of reports that BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF just became the fastest-ever ETF to reach $70B in total assets.
Add it all together, and it’s clear that the finance world has expanded beyond recognizing just $BTC and $ETH.
Solana’s $83.7B market cap could be set to swell even further on the back of a potential Nasdaq listing and possible ETF inclusion.
And any growth could skyrocket when critical upgrades like Solaxy, Solana’s first-ever Layer-2, provide a much-needed boost to Solana scalability and reliability.
ETFs: Kind Of A Big Deal
Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) are pools of assets listed on exchanges, letting ordinary investors gain exposure to the underlying assets without purchasing them directly.
That makes them great for retail investors who may not want the struggle of setting up a crypto wallet – even a simple wallet like Best Wallet app. However, ETFs are also appealing to institutional investors, who use ETFs to diversify their portfolios.
$BTC and $ETH ETFs both caused a spike in the price of their respective cryptos when they launched last year, and have been widely credited with fueling a steady increase in demand.
Currently, $BTC ETFs account for 6% of the total Bitcoin market cap; $ETH ETFs hold 3.13%.
In both cases, that’s a significant percentage of the total market cap and adds buying pressure.
A potential multi-asset ETF, from Nasdaq, no less, would do the same for any included cryptos, including Solana.
Solana’s Ecosystem Set to Expand
Solana has historically relied on a single Rust-based validator client. That was Agave, maintained by Anza, with over 90% of stake weight running on Jito-Solana, a fork built around MEV infrastructure.
The Jito-Solana consolidation boosted performance and staking returns, but raised concerns that a failure at a single point could severely disrupt the network.
In a positive sign, several competing clients are emerging:
- Jito‑Solana: the original MEV solution, which jump-started the trend of validator innovation
- Firedancer: developed by Jump Crypto, aimed at blazing-fast, modular performance
- Sig: Syndica’s rewrite in Zig, optimized for read-heavy workloads common in dApps
- Paladin: a lightweight MEV-focused fork of Jito featuring a protected ‘P3’ transaction lane to mitigate sandwich attacks and enhance fairness
- TinyDancer: an open-source light client designed for mobile environments, with SPV verification, data sampling, and fraud proofing
Taken together, these clients represent a maturing Solana ecosystem: each addresses specific limitations and contributes to greater resilience, specialization, and decentralization.
They lay the groundwork for further development on a Solana network that has seen some of the best meme coins and new crypto presales launched in recent years.
And now there’s another improvement on the way, just in time for any potential ETF: the first-ever Solana Layer-2 solution, Solaxy.
Solaxy ($SOLX): First-Ever Solana Layer-2 for Zero Down-Time
Why have investors poured $46M into the Solaxy ($SOLX) presale so far?
Because the potential for a Layer 2 solution that solves some of Solana’s nagging problems – like failed transactions and network congestion – is simply too great to miss.
The Solaxy project brings together aspects of Ethereum’s scalability and reliability, blending them with Solana’s faster network speeds and lower transaction costs.
The $SOLX token will be multi-chain, launching on Ethereum and bridging to the Solaxy Layer-2 when fully deployed.
In the meantime, the project is already well underway.
The Solaxy Block Explorer and Bridge are live on the testnet. And the token launch is imminent; there are only six days left in the presale.
Any investors eager to get in early on what could be the next generation of Solana development can check out our guide on how to buy Solaxy.
Tokens currently cost $0.00175, but our price prediction shows the potential for the token to hit $0.025 by the end of 2025, a 1300% increase.
Visit the Solaxy presale page today.
Nasdaq Listing Positions Solana – and Solaxy – As Financial Cornerstones
With Nasdaq listing Solana in its crypto index and a potential ETF on the horizon, institutional demand could surge.
Paired with the emergence of Solaxy, Solana is no longer just fast – it’s becoming foundational, and a core part of crypto finance.
Do your own research before investing; this is not financial advice. But be aware – time’s running out to get in on the ground floor, with under a week left in the Solaxy presale.