While Solana’s price has recorded a double-digit percentage decline since the start of the year, major financial institutions are steadily expanding their infrastructure on the blockchain. The divergence between current price action and fundamental adoption by established market players is striking. Recent moves by both ING Germany and asset manager WisdomTree are embedding Solana more deeply within the traditional financial system.
Security Concerns and Broad Market Pressure
Despite these foundational advances, SOL’s price faces significant headwinds. A primary pressure point was a security incident at the DeFi protocol Step Finance in late January, which resulted in the theft of approximately 261,854 SOL from the project’s treasury. Such events serve as a stark reminder of the ecosystem’s technical risks and weigh on investor sentiment.
Compounded by a generally weak broader market environment, this has left a clear mark on the charts. Solana is currently trading at $103.27, reflecting a loss of 16.85 percent over the past seven days. This has widened the gap to its 52-week high to nearly 56 percent.
European Access Expands for Retail Investors
A significant signal for acceptance in Europe comes from ING Germany. The country’s largest direct bank now allows its customers to purchase Crypto Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) on Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana directly through its “Direkt-Depot.” This substantially lowers barriers for private investors, as separate wallets or accounts on crypto exchanges are no longer required.
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The tax aspect is particularly noteworthy: the products, supplied by issuers including 21Shares, Bitwise, and VanEck, are physically backed. This means capital gains can be realized tax-free after a holding period of one year—analogous to direct ownership of the cryptocurrency. Martijn Rozemuller, CEO of VanEck Europe, views this step as a seamless integration of crypto investments into existing securities structures.
Tokenized Funds and the RWA Narrative
Adoption is also progressing on the institutional front. Asset manager WisdomTree has fully expanded its suite of tokenized funds onto the Solana blockchain. Since the end of January, both institutional investors and private individuals can access money market, equity, and bond funds via the provider’s platforms, with these assets represented directly on-chain.
This development underscores Solana’s role in the growing Real World Assets (RWA) sector. The integration allows users to transfer holdings into their own wallets and utilize them within the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem. In a parallel move, the Jupiter exchange has integrated Polymarket, opening up the prediction market arena on Solana.
The path forward will depend on whether the increasing inflow facilitated by regulated products, like those from ING and WisdomTree, can offset the dent in confidence caused by security incidents. While the infrastructure for institutional capital is being solidified, short-term volatility remains a challenge for investors.
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