A large bank has reportedly enabled clients to borrow up to 25% of the value of their Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL) holdings, according to a disclosure shared on the fund’s official site. No official announcements or detailed specifics have emerged regarding this borrowing facility, and no bank has been publicly confirmed as linked to the program.
What BSOL actually is, and why it matters
BSOL launched on October 28, 2025, as the first US spot Solana ETP offering 100% direct exposure to SOL holdings. Bitwise Asset Management designed the fund with an in-house staking strategy, executed through Bitwise Onchain Solutions and powered by Helius, targeting roughly 7% in staking rewards.
Those rewards don’t get distributed to shareholders as dividends. Instead, they’re reinvested to compound the fund’s net asset value over time.
The fund’s fee structure is notably lean. Bitwise charges a 0.20% sponsor fee, and even that gets waived on the first $1B in assets under management for the initial three months.
BSOL surpassed $500M in AUM by November 21, 2025, just three weeks after launch. More recently, the fund has reached approximately $586M in assets under management, with daily trading volume registering in the tens of millions of shares.
The 25% LTV facility, explained
Loan-to-value ratios are the bedrock of collateralized lending. If you hold $100K worth of BSOL and a bank offers 25% LTV, you can borrow up to $25K against those holdings without selling them. The asset stays in your account as collateral.
A 25% LTV is conservative by traditional finance standards. Blue-chip equities typically qualify for 50-70% LTV at major brokerages through margin accounts. Real estate mortgages routinely hit 80% or higher.
It’s worth noting that BSOL itself does not utilize leverage at the fund level, nor does it offer margin or secured lending products publicly. This borrowing facility exists at the bank level, meaning it’s the bank’s own risk assessment and credit infrastructure being applied to a crypto ETF, not something baked into the fund’s prospectus.
Why banks are warming up to crypto collateral
What’s different now is the wrapper. BSOL isn’t a raw token sitting in a MetaMask wallet. It’s a regulated ETF trading on a US exchange, with a named asset manager, auditable holdings, and daily liquidity.
Because BSOL reinvests staking rewards at roughly 7% annually, the collateral is theoretically appreciating in token terms even when prices are flat. SOL dropped more than 90% from its 2021 peak during the last bear market.
What to watch from here
For investors, the practical appeal is straightforward. Borrowing against BSOL instead of selling it means maintaining exposure to both SOL price appreciation and staking yield compounding, while still accessing liquidity for other investments or expenses. It’s a tax-efficient strategy too, since selling would trigger capital gains in most jurisdictions, while borrowing against an appreciated asset typically doesn’t.