The floodgates of altcoin ETF applications have opened with characteristic Wall Street enthusiasm, as over 70 crypto ETF filings now sit before the SEC like keen supplicants awaiting regulatory benediction.
Among these hopefuls, heavyweight firms including VanEck, 21Shares, Bitwise, and Grayscale have submitted multiple proposals spanning everything from Solana and XRP to—and one must appreciate the audacity here—Dogecoin thematic funds linked to internet culture.
The regulatory tea leaves suggest July could indeed mark a pivotal moment. Analysts assign Solana a compelling 90% approval probability for 2025, with Litecoin matching those odds and XRP trailing at a respectable 85%. Even memecoins like Dogecoin carry an 80% chance, though one wonders whether the SEC’s decision-makers fully grasp they’re potentially legitimizing assets born from internet jokes into trillion-dollar market infrastructure.
The SEC may inadvertently transform internet memes into legitimate trillion-dollar financial infrastructure through regulatory approval.
The mechanics appear surprisingly straightforward (at least by SEC standards). Issuers must update their S-1 filings by mid-June to address regulatory concerns, with the Commission promising responses within 30 days of submission. This timeline positions late June or early July as the earliest approval window, though delays remain characteristically probable given regulatory deliberation patterns. The evolving regulatory clarity across the cryptocurrency sector suggests a more favorable environment for such approvals may be emerging.
What makes these prospects particularly intriguing is the SEC’s apparent comfort with staking mechanisms within these products—a notable evolution from previous regulatory squeamishness around yield-generating crypto activities. The Commission requires clarification on in-kind redemption procedures, but this represents refinement rather than rejection.
The broader implications transcend individual asset approvals. These eight separate spot fund proposals currently under review could fundamentally reshape crypto market dynamics by channeling institutional capital through regulated investment vehicles. Enhanced liquidity, mainstream adoption, and market stability represent the optimistic scenario, though whether retail investors truly need ETF access to assets trading 24/7 on countless exchanges remains debatable. The success of existing products demonstrates considerable market appetite, with combined assets under management in U.S.-listed Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs reaching $138 billion by December 2024.
The classification of these assets as commodities rather than securities provides essential tailwinds for approval prospects. Should July deliver the anticipated approval wave, it would represent perhaps the most significant regulatory validation of alternative cryptocurrencies since Bitcoin’s initial ETF breakthrough—assuming, of course, that bureaucratic timelines align with market expectations, which history suggests occurs with approximately the same frequency as perfectly timed market entries.
