Figment, OpenTrade debut Solana-based stablecoin product targeting 15% APR

Figment and OpenTrade just dropped "OpenTrade Stablecoin Staking Yield" — a new stablecoin yield product targeting a juicy 15% APR by leveraging Solana staking returns. Crypto.com is handling custody for the underlying assets, keeping things secure.

Here's the play: institutions deposit and withdraw stablecoins, while the yield comes from Solana staking rewards plus an offsetting perpetual-futures hedge managed by OpenTrade. Deposits and withdrawals flow through Figment's platform, with the strategy executed in an OpenTrade-managed vault.

Figment claims this strategy has historically delivered returns above Solana's typical 6.5% to 7.5% staking rate — meaning they're squeezing extra juice out of the system.

For context: Figment is a massive institutional staking provider with $18 billion in assets under stake, while OpenTrade runs a platform for onchain and RWA-backed lending and stablecoin yield products.

With the US GENIUS Act passing in July, stablecoin issuers got a clear federal framework — but the law also bans them from offering interest or yield to tokenholders. So institutions are pivoting hard to staking-based returns, with Solana leading the charge through new staking ETFs.

The first Solana staking ETF launched in July when REX-Osprey's SSK fund started trading, hitting $100 million in AUM by July 22. Then on October 28, Bitwise dropped a new Solana ETF that debuted with over $220 million in assets. The next day, Grayscale's Solana Trust ETF (GSOL) began trading on NYSE Arca.

How these ETFs work: The SOL held by the fund gets staked to secure the network in exchange for rewards. Grayscale returns about 77% of those rewards to shareholders, while Bitwise distributes roughly 72% and keeps the rest as part of the fund structure.

Despite all this regulated access to Solana staking rewards, SOL's price has been struggling — trading around $135 at writing time, down about 19% over the past two weeks according to CoinGecko data.