What happened
Solana's (SOL 0.47%) price was up 9% as of 6:25 p.m. ET on Wednesday, as a noteworthy product launch offered investors a new way to gain exposure to the popular cryptocurrency
So what
Leading digital-asset manager Grayscale Investments debuted its Grayscale Solana Trust on Tuesday. The trust will make passive investments in SOL, the native token of the Solana network.
Accredited investors will be able to purchase shares in the Grayscale Solana Trust during periodic private placements.
Solana's tokens have been some of the best-performing crypto assets in 2021. Image source: Getty Images.
"For the last eight years, Grayscale has been at the forefront of offering investors efficient exposure to the ever-evolving digital currency ecosystem," Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein said in a press release. "We have had a front row seat to the mainstream acceptance and adoption of crypto, and increasingly find that investors are diversifying their exposure beyond digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum."
Now what
Like Ethereum, Solana is a smart-contract platform. But Solana is faster than Ethereum, and transactions on its network tend to be much cheaper. In turn, crypto projects in areas such as decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are flocking to Solana.
That's helped to drive up the price of Solana's tokens. Solana is now the fifth most-valuable cryptocurrency, with a total market value of more than $70 billion.
With the Grayscale Solana Trust potentially making the cryptoasset accessible to more investors, Solana's token price could continue to head higher in the year ahead.
