Is the SOL ETF about to be approved? How to bet? Attention: This article is purely for personal entertainment and does not provide any investment advice. one ️⃣ Origin The reason is that I saw an English tweet saying that the SEC approval deadline for SOL ETF is this Thursday, October 16th. The repost is Solana's official Big Week tweet, which seems to imply that approval will be granted immediately. two ️⃣ analyze How could I not know about such a big thing? Hurry up and start doing your homework. I casually searched for the content of SOL ETF on Twitter, but the results seem not very optimistic. Firstly, the SEC deadline of October 16th is accurate, and it's not just one, but two (plus three others with an unspecified date, but also in October) Upon reading tweets, many people immediately activate the self promotion mode, stating that the probability of approval is extremely high, and once approved, prices skyrocket. But this is really self congratulatory, because there is a key information that many people haven't mentioned. The US federal government is shut down, including SEC employees. That is to say, no one is currently operating this ETF application. On the screenshot, there is a request with a deadline of October 10th, but it has been put on hold due to the government shutdown. Currently, it is unlikely that the government shutdown will resume before the 16th, so in the short term, these two requests will still be put on hold. Now there are two unknown variables: 1. When will the shutdown of the US federal government end? When does the SEC start working normally 2. What is the probability of SOL ETF passing? Simply put, the probability of short-term recovery from a government shutdown is low, and it may create the longest shutdown history (exceeding 35 days in 2018). It is estimated that it may not return to normal until November. Secondly, if the SEC initiates the normal approval process, it is said that the probability of SOL ETFs passing before the end of this year is 99% (which means they are basically stable). three ️⃣ bet So, the key question is: How to bet on SOL ETF through this matter? It's not about betting whether it will pass, but rather how to make profits from it if it passes (or doesn't pass)? Firstly, assuming that you believe it will be approved, and once approved, the price will experience a short-term surge. So: 1. Buy SOL spot in advance 2. Contract long SOL 3. On chain revolving loan (collateralized SOL, lending USDC, converted into SOL) There are actually other options besides spot, contract, and mortgage loans. The implicit premise for the first three situations is: 1. Do you believe this will happen 2. Do you believe that the price will rise after this incident occurs What if it didn't happen? Then the only option is to admit defeat and be eliminated, you say, willing to take the gamble and accept the loss. However, in today's highly developed financial market, you don't just have the choice of betting direction. Let's change our mindset: You don't know if the ETF will ultimately pass, but you believe that regardless of whether it passes or not, the market price will experience significant fluctuations. If approved, there will be a significant increase; Failed, significant drop. Even though it passed, there was a significant drop (because they bought the rumor and sold the news) That is to say, you are confident that the volatility will increase. How do we gamble on this? One of the core aspects of financial product design is volatility? That is naturally the pearl on the financial crown: options Specific gambling methods: At times of low volatility (when the option purchase price is relatively cheap), buy both call and put options simultaneously. This constitutes a 'Long Straddle' strategy. At the time of that event, whether it was a sharp rise or fall, this strategy could basically guarantee a certain level of profitability. Unless the fluctuation is too small, you will lose almost all of your costs. Return to zero investment. Note: 1. The value of options will decay over time (for buyers, time is the enemy) 2. Options will reset to zero 3. The option price fluctuates violently and is a highly leveraged financial derivative For example, during the sharp decline a few days ago, if you had bought a put option in advance, the returns would have been enormous. ❗ Reminder again: The above content is for analysis only, do not participate in financial products that you are not familiar with at will.