Company: OSOL
Filing Date: 2025-10-22
Form Type: S-1
Source: 0001493152-25-018952
Chunk: 99

Company: Osprey Solana Trust
Filing Date: 2025-10-22
Form: S-1
Chunk 99
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 on the price of SOL and the value of the Shares.

Market Participants

Validators

Validators range from Solana enthusiasts to professional operations that design and build dedicated machines and data centers, including “clusters,” which are groups of validators that act cohesively and combine their processing to confirm transactions. When a validator confirms a transaction, the validator and any associated stakers receive a fee. During the course of ordering transactions and validating blocks, validators may be able to prioritize certain transactions in return for increased transaction fees, an incentive system known as “Maximal Extractable Value” or MEV. For example, in blockchain networks that facilitate DeFi protocols in particular, such as the Ethereum Network, users may attempt to gain an advantage over other users by offering greater transaction fees. Validators less commonly capture MEV in the Solana Network because, unlike the Ethereum Network, it does not publicly expose transactions before they are accepted by a validator. However, some efforts are underway to help Solana validators consistently capture MEV. See “—Summary of a SOL Transaction” above.

Investment and Speculative Sector

This sector includes the investment and trading activities of both private and professional investors and speculators. Historically, larger financial services institutions are publicly reported to have limited involvement in investment and trading in digital assets, although the participation landscape is beginning to change. Currently, there is relatively limited use of digital assets in the retail and commercial marketplace in comparison to relatively extensive use by speculators, and a significant portion of demand for digital assets is generated by speculators and investors seeking to profit from the short- or long-term holding of digital assets.

Retail Sector

The retail sector includes users transacting in direct peer-to-peer SOL transactions through the direct sending of SOL over the Solana Network. The retail sector also includes transactions in which consumers purchase goods and services from commercial or service businesses through direct transactions or third-party service providers, although the use of SOL as a means of payment is still developing and has not yet been accepted in the same manner as Bitcoin or Ether due to its infancy and because SOL has a different purpose than Bitcoin and Ether.

Service Sector

This sector includes companies that provide a variety of services including the buying, selling, payment processing and storing of SOL. For buying and selling SOL, Coinbase, Crypto.com, LMAX Digital, Kraken, and Bitstamp are some of the largest digital asset trading platforms by volume traded. For storing SOL, Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC, the SOL Custodian for the Trust, is a digital asset custodian that provides