Nasdaq Approves Listing of Canary’s Staked Injective ETF

Nasdaq listing approval is the first of two gates for any crypto ETF; the second is an effective S-1 registration statement with the SEC, the same hurdle that delayed BlackRock's and Fidelity's earlier spot filings. Canary Capital, an issuer that has pushed exchanges to list altcoin products beyond Bitcoin and Ether, built INJC as a staking vehicle rather than a passive holding fund, tying the product to Injective's proof-of-stake consensus instead of just its market price.

Until the S-1 turns effective, nobody can buy or sell INJC shares; Nasdaq's approval only reserves the ticker and clears the exchange-side paperwork. Once trading opens, investors get regulated, brokerage-account exposure to staked INJ without running a validator or a wallet, while Canary collects a 1.10% annual sponsor fee that comes straight out of the staking rewards. BitGo, named as custodian, takes on safekeeping and slashing risk that individual stakers currently bear themselves.

A fee of 1.10% is a meaningful bite out of any proof-of-stake yield, and it raises the question other staking ETFs face: how much of the reward actually reaches the holder versus the sponsor and custodian. Routing custody and staking through a single company, BitGo, also concentrates operational risk in one institution for a network built to need no single trusted party. Whether that trade-off is worth it depends on an investor's appetite for convenience over self-custody.

The next checkpoint is the SEC declaring Canary's S-1 effective, the step that actually opens INJC for trading; no date has been set publicly. A quick effectiveness would mirror the fast-tracked approvals seen for other 2025 staking ETFs and could prompt rival issuers to file similar Injective products. A prolonged review, by contrast, would leave INJC listed but untradeable, repeating the limbo other staked-token ETFs have sat in while awaiting SEC sign-off.