It took institutions over a decade to take bitcoin (BTC) seriously as an investment vehicle, even though well-known financial pioneers had embraced the largest cryptocurrency on the market years earlier.
But not even one year after the launch of the spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) which saw adoption from 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 U.S. President Donald Trump’s Trump coin (TRUMP) — to the market.
This isn’t just a bold move because DOGE and TRUMP are far less established and legitimate tokens, especially in Wall Street’s eyes, but meme coins provide no actual utility, unlike bitcoin or Ethereum’s ether (ETH). Their value simply comes from how much people believe it is worth making the launch of an ETF tracking the coins an ethical debate.
“Opinions vary greatly on the value of meme coins. I fail to see their long-term value, but others have different opinions,” said James Angel, faculty affiliate at Georgetown University’s McDonough’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy. “However, a sponsor of an ETF based on meme coins needs to be very careful in the marketing of 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 Canary Capital, a hedge fund that has applied for several non-meme coin crypto ETFs, said he is personally not a fan of memecoin ETFs and that while the firm considered filing an application, it ultimately decided not to.
“I don’t know how you can be a fiduciary who runs an ETF knowing that the basis of your underlying [asset] is meant and designed to go to zero,” he said. Although meme coins aren’t technically designed to go to zero, they are highly susceptible to collapsing once the hype around them dies down.
Nevertheless, he believes that memecoin ETFs will eventually be approved. The former SEC under Chair Gary Gensler, who resigned on Monday after Trump became President, has so far approved several spot bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs but refused to acknowledge a potential Solana (SOL) ETF, for which several issuers had filed initial documents.
More than 30 other applications are still pending, three of them being tied to memecoins.
“It’s very hard 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 large profit through so-called pump-and-dumps, but others find them troubling, especially when 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,” said Nic Carter, crypto influencer and venture capitalist, in a post on X. Carter has been a vocal Trump supporter.
Carter believes that there are multiple conflicts of interest when presidents start or run a business, let alone launch a cryptocurrency or DeFi protocol that they set policy for. Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump last year introduced a crypto lending platform called World Liberty Financial.
