Canary Capital files S-1 for a spot TRUMP ETF

Digital asset manager Canary Capital, a key player in the crypto industry, has filed for approval to list an exchange-traded fund for the Trump memecoin.

Canary Capital filed its S-1 registration for the Official Trump (TRUMP) meme coin on Tuesday, adding U.S. President Donald Trump‘s meme coin to its list of applications for spot exchange-traded funds currently before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Initially, Canary signalled its intention with a Trust registration earlier this month.

The Canary Trump Coin ETF will track the price of Official TRUMP, the memecoin that launched ahead of President Trump’s inauguration in January. Approval would give investors an opportunity to buy TRUMP tokens via traditional brokerage accounts.

Is a spot TRUMP ETF coming?

The S-1 filing sets the stage for Canary Capital’s move to launch a TRUMP spot ETF. 

What this means is that the fund joins the likes of Dogecoin (DOGE) and Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) on the list of memecoin related ETF filings. SEC acknowledged the Canary’s filing for a PENGU ETF in early July, and just delayed its decision until a later date.

While the latest proposal has elicited excitement across the TRUMP meme community, Bloomberg senior ETF expert Eric Balchunas says it may be difficult for this to go through. Largely, Balchunas notes that there needs to be a futures ETF on the coin on an exchange for at least six months.

Currently, there is no such product, and he opines that the filing could be a “40 Act product.”

The SEC has acknowledged multiple forms 19b-4 for spot exchange-traded funds, as well as delayed decisions on many since giving a nod to Ethereum (ETH) spot ETFs in 2024. Prior to that, the securities watchdog has approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs for the U.S. market.

Notably, with the regulatory landscape increasingly crypto-friendly, anticipation is high that more ETFs on digital assets will soon be available to investors via traditional market infrastructure.