Canary Files for First Trump Meme Coin Spot ETF

Crypto fund manager Canary Capital filed Tuesday to list a spot ETF focused entirely on and exposed directly to President Donald Trump’s meme coin, which trades as TRUMP, in a first for Wall Street.

While two other ETF providers applied to list TRUMP exchange-traded funds earlier this year, those applications were filed with the SEC under the Investment Company Act of 1940—meaning they would not be directly exposed to the meme coin itself, but instead invest in a Cayman Islands subsidiary holding TRUMP, plus more stable cash equivalents like U.S. Treasuries. 

Today, in contrast, Canary filed its TRUMP ETF application under the Securities Act of 1933. That means the Canary TRUMP Coin ETF, if approved, would be entirely and directly exposed to the president’s meme coin. A reserve of TRUMP tokens backing the ETF would have to be held under stringent custody requirements, likely in the United States. 

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas expressed skepticism Tuesday that the SEC will approve Canary’s application because, typically, a non-security asset underlying a spot ETF needs to be first traded as a futures ETF—one that tracks an asset’s price, but does not involve acquiring the asset—for at least six months. No such TRUMP futures products have yet traded for that amount of time, Balchunas said.

The analyst was open to the possibility, however, that TRUMP could eventually make its way into a more diversified ETF offered by Canary via the 1940 Company Act.

Weighing Canary’s TRUMP ETF application will certainly pose its challenges for the SEC, which since January, has diligently followed the president’s directives to take a more permissive approach to crypto projects and companies. 

When pressed in February on whether she intended to regulate the president’s personal meme coin project, Republican SEC commissioner Hester Peirce said the token likely did not fall under the regulator’s jurisdiction. 

Weeks later, the SEC issued a blanket statement declaring all meme coins to not be considered securities, and thus outside the agency’s purview.

Should Trump’s SEC ultimately greenlight the formal integration of the president’s meme token with Wall Street, the move would constitute a major, potentially unprecedented development in the history of the U.S. presidency. The token has also plunged in value by over 70% since debuting in January.

Analysts have predicted SEC leadership is overwhelmingly likely to approve other spot meme coin ETFs before the end of the year. In recent weeks, however, the regulator has punted on final decisions for several such applications.