It’s official: Paul Atkins has been sworn in as the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The crypto industry will be looking for a change of direction after years of frustration and “regulation by enforcement” under Gary Gensler.
Over the past three months, there have been signs of this too. Major exchanges have been told they’re no longer under investigation — with the SEC establishing a “crypto task force” designed to develop clear rules and guidance.
Following on from a resounding Senate confirmation, Atkins says top priority is to “ensure that the U.S. is the best place in the world to invest and do business.”
But there’s another item on his to-do list that the crypto world is paying very close attention to right now: the status of a flurry of exchange-traded funds tracking the spot price of smaller cryptocurrencies.
You’ll know by now that only ETFs for Bitcoin and Ether have made their debut on Wall Street so far — launching in January and July of last year respectively. Together, they’ve attracted tens of billions of dollars of inflows.
But as a post from Bloomberg Intelligence shows, there are currently 72 crypto-related funds awaiting regulatory approval — filed by the likes of Bitwise, Grayscale, CoinShares, Franklin Templeton and VanEck.
These ETFs come in a wide range of flavors — and if given the green light, could transform how institutions gain exposure to digital assets.
Perhaps the most pressing matter is whether Wall Street products will be launched for bigger altcoins including XRP.
Regularly switching places with the USDT stablecoin as the third-largest cryptocurrency in the world, its value has accelerated by close to 350% over the past 12 months — compared with Ether’s decline of 40% over the same period.
Yet there are no guarantees this will happen anytime soon. Just this week, the SEC postponed the deadline for making a decision on one of these ETFs — filed by Franklin Templeton — until the middle of June at the earliest.
Applications also remain pending for exchange-traded funds tracking the spot price of Solana, Cardano and Litecoin. But if they’re approved, don’t necessarily expect demand to go through the roof. It’s highly likely that inflows to these products would be a small fraction of the demand enjoyed by Bitcoin ETFs — and reflective of their overall standing in the market.
Bloomberg Intelligence does seem to be upbeat about the odds of approval at some point this year — with XRP given a 85% chance of joining the ranks, rising to 90% for LTC and SOL:
Image: Bloomberg IntelligenceIt’s also surreal to see ETFs being filed that would monitor joke cryptocurrencies and meme coins such as DOGE, MELANIA and TRUMP. Let’s be honest: digital assets like this are hardly likely to pique the interest of pin-striped millionaires on Wall Street, especially considering they’re all down more than 75% from record highs.
But as Bitwise’s chief investment officer Matt Hougan recently told Cryptonews, there might still be appetite for a Dogecoin ETF:
“There’s a community that fervently believes in it. It’s been around for 12 years, it was here before Mt. Gox collapsed … and for those people who want to own it, it would be great if they could access a low-cost, secure ETF that practises best institutional custody.”
Other pending applications would enable investors to receive staking rewards from spot Ether ETFs — potentially making them a more attractive proposition. But ETF analyst Eric Balchunas recently argued that inflows are unlikely to spike unless the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency rallies hard first.
Meanwhile, ProShares is lobbying to provide ETFs that would enable investors to go short on both XRP and SOL — and effectively bet against these cryptocurrencies. One specific product, known as “UltraShort,” would mean investors receive 2x returns whenever they fall in value.
Tuttle Capital Management has also filed for 2x ETFs across 10 digital assets — including XRP and Solana, along with lesser-known coins like Chainlink, Polkadot and BONK. If approved, they could magnify an investor’s returns by delivering 200% gains if the cryptocurrency’s price rises — but also amplify losses.
The firm has admitted these applications are pretty speculative, and amount to “testing the waters” to see how crypto-friendly the Trump administration really is.
No matter what happens, the onboarding of additional cryptocurrencies into the ETF space will deliver one crucial advantage: allowing providers to create multi-asset funds with allocations for a wide range of coins — and not just Bitcoin and Ether. That could be an exciting use case, and simplify the process of gaining exposure to the market without owning digital assets directly.
The post 72 Crypto ETFs Awaiting Approval from SEC: What Are They? appeared first on Cryptonews.
