It took institutions over a decade to take bitcoin (BTC) seriously as an investment vehicle, even though well-known financial pioneers had taken the biggest cryptocurrency to market years earlier.
But not even a year after the launch of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which saw adoption by pension funds, hedge funds and even universities, one issuer is taking it a step further.
The latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission aim to bring meme coin ETFs — such as those tracking dogecoin ( DOGE ) or US President Donald Trump’s Trump coin ( TRUMP ) — to market.
This is not just a bold move because DOGE and TRUMP are far less established and legitimate tokens, especially in the eyes of Wall Street, but meme coins provide no real utility, unlike bitcoin or Ethereum’s ether (ETH). Their value simply comes from how much people think it’s worth, making the launch of an ETF that tracks the coins an ethical debate.
“Opinions are very different about the value of meme coins. I don’t see their long-term value, but others have different opinions,” said James Angel, faculty affiliated with Georgetown University’s McDonough’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy. “But a sponsor of an ETF based on meme coins must be very careful in marketing the ETF. It would be highly unethical to market such an ETF as a prudent investment vehicle.”
Steve McClurg, former CEO of Valkyrie and founder of Canary Capital, a hedge fund that has filed for several non-meme coin crypto ETFs, said that he personally is not a fan of memecoin ETFs, and that while the firm was considering file an application, it ultimately decided. not to.
“I don’t know how you can be a fiduciary running an ETF knowing that the basis of your underlying [asset] is meant and designed to go to zero,” he said. While meme coins aren’t technically designed to go to zero, they are very susceptible to collapsing when the hype around them dies down.
Nevertheless, he believes memecoin ETFs will eventually be approved. Former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who stepped down Monday after Trump became president, has so far approved several spot bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, but refused to recognize a potential Solana (SOL) ETF, for which several issuers had submitted preliminary documents .
More than 30 other applications are still pending, three of which are related to memecoins.
“It’s very difficult for the SEC, where the president chooses the commissioners, to deny a meme coin put out by the president,” he said.
Meme coins have long divided the crypto community. Some find them fun to trade as they can quickly bring in a big profit through so-called pump-and-dumps, but others find them worrisome, especially when they are issued by the country’s president.
“Call me old fashioned, but I think presidents should focus on running the country and not launching scam tokens,” crypto influencer and venture capitalist Nic Carter said in a post on X. Carter has been a vocal Trump supporter.
Carter believes there are multiple conflicts of interest when presidents start or run a business, let alone launch a cryptocurrency or DeFi protocol, for which they set policy. President-elect Donald Trump last year introduced a crypto-lending platform called World Liberty Financial.
