Crypto issuers surely seem to think anything is possible now that Donald Trump is in power.
Exchange-traded fund issuer Rex Shares and crypto asset manager Osprey Funds filed numerous crypto-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on Tuesday, including a Trump ETF, according to a Tuesday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The ETF would track the price of TRUMP, the memecoin launched by the president himself on Friday, a few days before his inauguration. The coin generated nearly $17 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours, while falling nearly 25% in the same period.
First Lady Melania Trump also launched her own token called MELANIA, which is currently trading at around $4. Both tokens are memecoins and therefore have no intrinsic value. Traders simply bet on whether the price of tokens will rise or fall.
An ETF tracking price would therefore offer no value to buyers.
“It appears to me that issuers are pushing the envelope with a new SEC administration while trying a new structure to provide exposure to digital assets in an ETF package,” said James Seyffart, ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Issuers have also filed paperwork to launch an ETF tracking the price of Dogecoin (DOGE), another memecoin. In one of his first executive orders, Trump created a “Department of Government Effectiveness” renaming the U.S. Digital Service. While the entity is supposedly responsible for streamlining certain government agencies and departments, its website at press time had just featured a photo of the dogecoin mascot.
The SEC, led by former Chairman Gary Gensler, has been cautious in approving ETFs tracking cryptocurrencies. It took years for issuers to receive the green light to launch a spot bitcoin (BTC) ETF as well as a spot ethereum (ETH) ETF. It is unclear how quickly these latest applications, which also include ETFs following BONK (another memecoin), XRP (associated with the Ripple company), and SOL (a layer 1 blockchain), could be approved.
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, called the Trump ETF app “surreal.”
