A rush of filings from property managers eager to offer innovative crypto products, from Dogecoin to the first girl’s image coin, may also drive the Securities and Exchange Commission past a point of no return.
As the Commission moves to define crypto regulations under President Donald Trump, applications for area crypto ETFs appear to be popping up time by day—ranging from Dogecoin, the initial joke gold loving by Elon Musk, to altcoins like XRP, Solana, HBAR, and Litecoin.  ,
An ETF is an investment solution that makes it possible for buyers to get exposure to an property without having to directly keep or maintain the asset. Cryptocurrency ETFs, which were recently approved by the SEC last month, give investors the ability to invest in the crypto market without having to deal with electronic wallets or cryptocurrency exchanges. Stocks in these Stocks can be purchased via standard companies, just like stocks.
Matt Hougan, the company’s CEO, informed that regulators may approve place ETFs for up to unique digital assets this year without giving specifics about the firm’s SEC filings. In order for that to happen, however, he said that the SEC would need to cross a regulatory” Rubicon” . ,
” All commodity-based ETPs, ]or ] exchange-traded products, have had a regulated futures market”, he said. Outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum, there are no restricted futures markets.
The SEC dragged its feet for ten years on location Bitcoin ETFs, constantly citing concerns about scams and market manipulation in its rejections, despite the SEC’s acceptance of the most recent bitcoin boom a year ago and the mountains of cash that followed.
However, in 2021, the SEC granted approval for Bitcoin futures ETFs, which ultimately opened the door for spot Bitcoin ETFs following Grayscale’s victory in court.
” Avoidable and improbable”
Bitcoin futures ETFs give investors access to contracts that are traded on CFTC-regulated exchanges, such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange ( CME). A CME Group market surveillance team monitors trading to halt any speculative behavior, such as market manipulation.
After the Commission rejected Grayscale’s request to uplist the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ( GBTC ) into a full-fledged ETF, the SEC filed a lawsuit against the SEC. While Grayscale claimed that Bitcoin futures ETFs dispelled those concerns, the SEC once more pointed to the SEC’s well-known concerns.
A federal appeals court ultimately upheld the SEC’s rejection as “arbitrary and capricious” and declared that a price distortion in the spot market will reflect the price of the futures market because the CME Bitcoin futures market and the spot Bitcoin market are so closely related.
After it was found that the SEC’s grounds for rejecting Grayscale’s bid didn’t add up, a clutch of products from 10 asset managers, including Bitwise, started trading less than five months later.
The Commission’s subsequent approval of spot Ethereum ETFs, however, was a shocker.  ,
Ethereum futures are hosted by the CME, and Ethereum futures ETFs were approved by the SEC in 2023, according to a lawsuit filed by Consensys, an Ethereum software developer, that the SEC had intended to designate the cryptocurrency as such. ( Disclosure: Consensys is one of 22 investors in an editorially independent . )
$MELANIA
Bitwise requested a spot Dogecoin ETF this week, but Tuttle Capital Management, the asset manager, pushed for leveraged ETFs that covered relatively new meme coins on Monday.
The firm filed applications for a slew of leveraged ETFs, covering the president’s meme coin—no more than two weeks old—and the first lady’s token, per the . In addition, it sought to establish a leveraged ETF for, among other tokens, the Solana meme coin Bonk.  ,
Hougan has a chance of receiving a stamp of approval for the application that centers on the first lady’s meme coin, but other cryptocurrencies that are more closely related to commodities might have a chance.
” If we cross that Rubicon, to some degree, then the floodgates are open”, Hougan said of further crypto ETF approvals. ” We don’t know how far they’re open, but I bet it’s not just a crack”.
In Germany and Switzerland, among many other markets, regulators have found that a regulated futures market wasn’t necessary to approve a spot crypto ETF beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum, Hougan said.  ,
In the U. S., it would still be a big deal if a new precedent was established.
” It’s not an ETF commandment written by God on stone”, Hougan said. ” Whatever that new standard is, if we get there, then I think there are many more opportunities”.
At the end of the day, the SEC may not have to cross a perceived Rubicon, at least when it comes to Solana.  ,
Coinbase acknowledged it was moving to establish Solana futures on its derivatives exchange on Thursday, mirroring contracts that the CME Group would list, and that it was “actively working with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.”
The SEC declined comment to .
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