Solana Hits Highest Price This Month Amid Coinbase Upgrades, Canadian ETF Launches

The price of Solana (SOL) rose to its highest price so far in April on Thursday, outpacing other top coins following the launch of multiple Solana ETFs in Canada with staking capabilities, along with long-awaited Solana infrastructure upgrades at centralized exchange Coinbase.

Solana is currently trading for nearly $136, per data from CoinGecko, reaching that level for the first time since March 28. SOL is up 6% on the day, outpacing daily gains from Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and other top 10 coins ranked by market cap.

Over the last week, Solana is up nearly 23%, making it one of the biggest gainers in the top 100 coins.

The recent surge comes amid Wednesday's launch of Canada's first spot Solana ETFs, from issuers including 3iQ, Evolve, CI, and Purpose. The exchange-traded funds feature staking functionality, providing investors with yield obtained by issuers staking their SOL to support the Solana blockchain.

Spot Solana ETFs have yet to be approved in the United States, though firms including VanEck, 21Shares, and Bitwise have filed applications with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch such products.

Canada to Launch 'World First' Spot Solana ETFs With Staking This Week: Balchunas

Canada plans to launch a number of spot Solana (SOL) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with staking capabilities on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. In a post on X, Balchunas cited a circular from Toronto-Dominion Bank stating that the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), which oversees the Toronto Stock Exchange, has approved four asset managers to list the new products.  "The OSC today gave the go-ahead to ETF issuers, including Purpose, Evolve, CI, and 3iQ, to l...

Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs were both approved in the U.S. in 2024, and alongside Solana, issuers have filed to launch a potentially wide range of additional spot crypto funds in the States, including those tied to XRP, Dogecoin, and even President Donald Trump's official Solana-based meme coin.

Solana's leg up to a recent high Thursday also came following an announcement from crypto exchange Coinbase that it had upgraded its infrastructure, enabling faster and more reliable transactions for the asset.

Per the X post, Coinbase will "process transactions asynchronously, leading to a 5x improvement in block processing throughput," "leverage bare metal machines for 4x improved RPC performance," and "be more resilient via improved failover, liquidity optimizations, and better operational controls."

Coinbase has previously faced criticism over Solana transaction delays via its exchange, which came to a head in January around the launch of Trump's meme coin.

"It’s clear we need to step up our game on Solana," he wrote on X in January, "scale our infrastructure, and provide native support for common use cases like DEX/meme coin trading."