Headline: Amundi brings €2.4T of institutional clout on-chain with UCITS fund launch on Solana
Europe’s largest asset manager, Amundi, has taken a major step into crypto: it and tokenization partner Spiko Finance have launched SAFO, a UCITS-compliant tokenized fund, natively on the Solana blockchain. Amundi, which manages roughly €2.4 trillion in assets, and Spiko say this deployment marks the fund’s arrival on its eighth blockchain.
What’s been launched
- SAFO is a tokenized sub-fund under the legal umbrella of SPIKO SICAV and is regulated by France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF).
- Spiko Finance is serving as transfer agent, tokenization platform and broker, while CACEIS (Amundi’s custody affiliate) acts as depositary and handles fund administration.
- The fund gains exposure via total return swaps that are fully backed by Tier-1 banking counterparties, including BNP Paribas.
- Subscriptions and redemptions are available in EUR, USD, GBP and CHF, with a minimum investment equal to one unit in each currency class.
Why it matters
- UCITS status lets SAFO be marketed across EU member states under a single regulatory framework, removing many cross-border compliance hurdles that have historically discouraged conservative European institutional allocators from on-chain products.
- Solana was chosen for its high transaction throughput and an expanding institutional infrastructure, enabling a native on-chain experience for a regulated fund wrapper.
Market context and implications
- The launch follows strong signals of institutional interest in Solana: US spot Solana ETFs have surpassed $1 billion in assets under management, and Crypto.news tracked about 30 institutions holding roughly $540 million in Solana ETF exposure as of March 2026. Amundi’s move supplies a European institutional entry point to that momentum.
- The timing also highlights a two-sided institutional narrative: some firms (like Goldman Sachs) have reduced SOL exposure while Amundi is deploying capital into a Solana-based UCITS fund—an imbalance that can create structural demand over time. Crypto.news has also reported that institutional endowments are increasingly willing to add Solana ETF positions as regulated wrappers lower allocation barriers.
- Prior to this Solana launch, the fund had roughly $100 million in committed AUM across its seven existing blockchain deployments (March 2026).
Wider signal
- The Amundi–Spiko launch represents growing transatlantic pressure for institutional-grade Solana products: US-based ETF momentum, renewed staked-SOL filings (for example, a Morgan Stanley refiling), and now a major European asset manager rolling out a regulated native Solana fund together signal broader institutional acceptance and infrastructure build-out.
Bottom line: This is a notable step in bringing traditional asset management and regulated European fund structures onto high-throughput blockchains. By combining UCITS regulation, bank-backed swaps, and native tokenization on Solana, Amundi and Spiko aim to lower friction for conservative institutional investors to access crypto exposure on-chain.
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