Remember when altcoin ETFs were a pipe dream? Uh
when the SEC treated anything beyond Bitcoin like radioactive waste? You’re radioactive. Well,
welcome to 2025, where regulatory capture has reached such artistic heights that we now have ETF
applications for penguin NFTts and presidential meme coins. Folks, the floodgates have been
dynamited off of their hinges. Today we dive into the spectacular circus that is the altcoin ETF
arms race where filing fees are cheap, approval odds are soaring, and the future of finance has
never looked so entertaining. My name is Nick and you’re watching the Coin Bureau. First things
first, you need to know that nothing in this video is financial advice. It’s just educational
content intended to inform you about altcoin ETFs. ago, mentioning Salana ETF in polite company
would have you laughed out of the room. Now, we have Bloomberg ETF analysts putting 95% approval
odds on not just Soul, but XRP and Litecoin, too. So, what changed? Simple. Trump won. Gary Gensler
got the boot and suddenly every two-bit asset manager with a filing fee and a dream is rushing
to trademark whatever altcoin ETF before someone else beats them to it. According to research
tracked by Cointelegraph, there have been at least 31 spot altcoin ETF filings in the first half of
2025 alone. That’s more altcoin ETF applications in 6 months than we saw in Bitcoin’s entire first
decade. The crown jewel of this regulatory gold rush just went live. Rex Osprey’s Salana staking
ETF launched on July 2nd, becoming America’s first exchange traded fund that actually pays you to
hold crypto in the form of staking rewards. So, don’t get too excited. The ticker is SSK, and on
its debut day, it pulled in $12 million in inflows with $33 million in trading volume. Not exactly
Black Rockck numbers, but for a product that was unthinkable under the previous administration,
it’s a solid start, but don’t take my word for it. A Bloomberg ETF analyst, Eric Balcunis, said the
staked spot Salana ETF had a quote healthy start to trading. He noticed that it quote blows away
the Salana futures ETF but was quote much lower than the spot bitcoin and ether funds when they
launched and that’s the new barometer of success. Not whether these products should actually exist
but how they stack up against the institutional cash vacuum that is ibet. The really fascinating
part about SSK isn’t its performance, it’s how it got approved. Rex Osprey bypassed the traditional
19B4 filing process that most other crypto ETF providers are still waiting on. Instead,
they used what’s called a 40act structure, which Bloomberg’s James Safet described
as quote very rare in the ETF world. It’s basically regulatory arbitrage. Use a different
legal structure to avoid bureaucratic bottleneck. SSK holds roughly 80% of these assets in soul with
about 50% of those tokens actively staked. The remaining 20% is held in liquid staked tokens and
other Salana ETFs which is kind of wild. The fund passes all of these staked rewards directly
to investors currently yielding about 7.3%. It’s structured under the Investment Company
Act of 1940, considered more favorable from a regulatory standpoint than the 1933 act route
most other applicants are taking. Translation: While everyone else is stuck in the traditional
approval queue, Rex Osprey found a side door and walked right through it. Now that’s innovation.
But if staking Salana sounds too sensible for your tastes, don’t worry. The industry has truly
outdone itself with its next master stroke, an ETF for cartoon penguin NFTts. On March 20th,
Canary Capital filed an S1 form with the SEC for the Canary Penu NFT, a fund designed to hold both
Pangu tokens and Pudgy Penguin NFTs. If approved, it would be the first US-listed ETF to include
NFTts alongside cryptocurrencies. The allocation 80 to 95% Pangu tokens and 5 to 15% Pudgy Penguin
NFTs with some Soul and ETH thrown in for good measure. Let’s take a moment to appreciate the
ambition here. Penu launched on Salana in December 2024, making it roughly 7 months old at the time
of shooting this video. The token has quote very few identified use cases apart from a collector’s
item. According to Canary Capital’s own filing, it’s down roughly 90% from its January peak. And
yet, someone thought, you know what institutional investors really need? Regulated exposure to
cartoon birds. The filing reads like performance art. Canary Capital explains they’ll evaluate NFTs
for the fund based on quote factors such as price, relative rarity, perceived desiraability of
particular NFTTS traits and characteristics, and the overall collection value. Imagine being
the portfolio manager explaining to a pension fund trustee why you just bought a $100,000 NFT because
it has a particularly desirable characteristic of its beak. Bloomberg’s Eric Balcunis was suitably
baffled, commenting, quote, “This is the second ETF file in this week that I actually had to
Google.” Pudgy penguins. The community reaction on crypto Twitter was even less charitable.
A 1x user summed it up perfectly. Quote, “A Pangu NFT might be the dumbest thing I’ve seen
lately. We don’t even need ETFs for ghost chains, much less sub6month-old meme coins. But here’s the
thing about Canary Capital. They’re not naive. A CEO, Steven McClur, is a former Valkyrie CIO
who knows exactly what he’s doing. ETF filings are relatively cheap. It costs around $100,000 to
draft an S1, but the marketing value is enormous. Every filing generates headlines, social
media buzz, and first ever bragging rights. Canary has already filed for ETFs tracking
Salana, Litecoin, XRP, Hideera, Acceler, and now SUI. That’s seven filings since Trump’s election
victory. By the looks of it, McClur and his team have pivoted from building an investment company
to building a marketing department with regulatory approval. The Pangu filing perfectly encapsulates
what’s wrong with this picture. It’s not about serving investors or advancing crypto adoption.
It’s about exploiting regulatory arbitrage and media cycles for corporate gain. Speaking of
gains, if you’re looking to maximize your gains, cartoon penguins, something more significant
was happening across town. On July 1st, the SEC approved Gayscale’s conversion of its
digital large cap fund into a spot ETF, the first multi-asset crypto ETF in American history.
The Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund or GDLC holds exactly what it sounds like, a market cap weighted
basket of the top five largest crypto assets. The allocation is as follows. At launch, BTC at
80.2%, ETH at 11.3%, Soul at 2.7%, XRP at 4.8%, and ADA at 0.81%. Total assets under management
approximately $755 million. ETF store president Nate Garachi called this a potentially crucial
precedent, noting that quote, “If GDLC gets the nod, it could clear a path for single asset
spot ETFs tied to crypto assets like XRP, Salana, and Litecoin.” His logic is sound because if the
SEC approves a basket that includes Soul and XRP, it becomes much harder to argue that those assets
are too dangerous for standalone ETFs. But here is where the story gets interesting. Just one day
after approval, the SEC halted the conversion for review. According to a July 2nd letter, the
AY’s commissioners were reviewing the decision, which had been approved through delegated
authority, uh, meaning staff gave the signoff without a full commission vote. This regulatory
flipflop perfectly captures the chaos of the current moment. On the one hand, you have staff
level approvals happening rapidly for products that would have been unthinkable 18 months ago. On
the other hand, you have commissioners scrambling to maintain some semblance of oversight as their
own underlings approve crypto ETFs faster than they can track. It revealed a tension within
the SEC itself. Career staff freed from Gary Gensler’s crypto shackles are approving
products at breakneck speed. Political appointees are still trying to figure out what
their actual policy positions are supposed to be. It’s not quite the measured regulatory evolution
we had in mind for the US crypto industry. It’s more like regulatory whiplash driven by political
winds. The numbers behind this approval frenzy tell their own story. Now, Bloomberg analysts
Eric Balcurus and James Seaffort have raised their approval odds for multiple altcoin ETFs to levels
that would have been absurd just a few months ago. You’ll recall that Salana, XRP, and Litecoin now
sit at 95% approval chances by year end. Well, Dogecoin, Cardano, Polka Dot, Hideera, and
Avalanche are at 90%. Safe is expecting quote a wave of new ETFs in the second half
of 2025 and predicts that spot XRP, Salana, and Litecoin products would be green lit before
year end. The confidence is remarkable given that most of these assets were considered unregistered
securities by the previous administration just a few months ago. So what’s driving this
optimism? Well, two key factors, political wins and regulatory streamlining. Trump’s
election victory and installation of crypto friendly leadership at key agencies has obviously
shifted the approval calculus. But there’s also a more technical development that could accelerate
the entire process. According to cryptojournalist Eleanor Terret, the SEC is reportedly exploring a
simplified listing structure for crypto ETFs that would automate much of the approval process. Under
the proposed system, ETF issuers could potentially sidestep 19B4 application filings entirely.
Instead, they just need to submit an SEC form S1 and wait 75 days. If the SEC doesn’t object,
the ETF gets listed automatically. And this would eliminate much of the back and forth between
fund managers and regulators that currently creates these bottlenecks. It’s essentially an
approval by default system. Exactly the kind of streamlined process that crypto companies have
been demanding for years. The SEC has already shown this approach works in practice. In early
July, the agency asked prospective Salana ETF issuers to respond to comments and refile amended
S1 documents before the end of July. According to sources familiar with the matter, this suggests
approvals could come much faster than the original October deadlines that have been floating around.
All seven asset managers seeking Salana ETFs, including Gayscale, Vanic, 21 Shares, Canary
Capital, Bitwise, and Franklin Templeton have updated their filings to include staking
capabilities in response to SEC feedback. The fact that the SEC is providing specific
guidance rather than just delaying indefinitely signals genuine intent to approve these products.
But let’s be real, regulatory streamlining might as well be a euphemism for regulatory abdication.
The SEC is essentially admitting it can’t or won’t evaluate these products on their merits. So, it’s
defaulting to approval unless something obviously catastrophic happens. Obviously, this hands-off
strategy could result in some big problems down the line, but it seems that the new SEC chairman,
Paul Atkins, has no issues with this. And that’s a bit scary when you consider that he voted in
favor of relaxing rules around banks many years ago. A move that many have argued contributed to
the 2008 financial crisis. More about that in the description. Now, of course, no altcoin ETF Gold
Rush would be complete without the Trump family’s involvement. And boy, have they delivered. Trump
Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, has filed not one, not two, but
three separate crypto ETF applications. The latest filed recently is called the Truth Social Crypto
Bluehip ETF. The allocation 70% BTC, 15% ETH, 8% Soul, 5% Kronos, that’s the Crypto.com
exchange token, and 2% to XRP. This follows Trump Media’s earlier filings for a Bitcoin
only ETF, and a Bitcoin Ethereum combination fund. All three products will be branded under
the company’s new fintech division, a Truthfi, in partnership with Crypto.com. A Chris Marlech
at Crypto.com’s CEO praised the collaboration for connecting his platform to quote a brand with
a loyal following. Let’s decode what’s actually happening here. Trump Media is essentially
licensing the Trump brand to Crypto.com for use in its ETF marketing. Crypto.com provides the
back-end technology, custody, and crypto supply, while Trump Media provides the brand recognition
and political connections. It’s the same licensing model Trump has used for everything from stakes
to universities. Slap the name on someone else’s product and collect royalties. The Made in
America branding is pretty ambitious, coming from a partnership with Crypto.com, a Singapore-based
company that operates globally and was previously banned from certain US markets due to regulatory
issues. But never mind the details. What matters is the marketing narrative. Trump Media’s chairman
Devon Nunees explained the strategy perfectly. quote, “We aim to give investors a means to invest
in American energy, manufacturing, and other firms that provide a competitive alternative to the
woke funds and debanking problems that you find throughout the market.” In other words, it’s
culture war investing. Buy our ETFs to own the libs. The timing isn’t coincidental. Trump Media
announced these ETF plans shortly after unveiling a $2.5 billion Bitcoin Treasury strategy following
the corporate treasury playbook pioneered by Micro Strategy. The company stock has been struggling
down more than 40% in 2025 despite Trump’s return to the White House. So, the crypto pivot makes
perfect sense from a corporate desperation standpoint. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balcunis
was skeptical. quote, “Despite Trump’s brand, these will likely be microscopic in asset
gathering compared to IBET, FBTCL. That said, just the fact they’re launching it adds the
mainstreamification narrative, which matters.” Translation: These products will probably fail
commercially, but they’ll generate headlines and political capital, which, let’s be honest,
is probably the point. So, it looks like crypto speculation is becoming institutionalized on
Wall Street faster than we thought possible. It’s slightly unnerving to think that the same Wall
Street machine that packaged subprime mortgages into AAA rated securities is now jamming memecoins
into regulated investment products. The Rex Osprey Salana Fund is genuinely innovative, offering
something new to investors who want yieldbearing crypto exposure. But the Pangu NFT fund, the Trump
branded basket of politically aligned tokens, these aren’t investment products. They’re
marketing stunts with expense ratios. The bigger question is what this rush to approve everything
means for the future of crypto. No doubt we are going to see some crazy price action unfolding if
top signal headlines like these keep coming out. You have to wonder though when pension funds
can buy exposure to Pangu through their existing brokerage accounts, has crypto been adopted or
has it been domesticated? The staking element adds another layer of complexity. SSK’s ability to pass
through staking rewards to investors is genuinely beneficial. It eliminates the need for individual
investors to manage validators, custody, and technical operations. But it also means that
professional fund managers, not token holders, are making governance decisions about network
upgrades and validator selection. As more staking ETFs launch, and the SEC has signaled openness to
Ethereum staking as well, we could see meaningful portions of proof ofstake networks controlled
by a handful of asset managers. Black Rockck already controls massive portions of corporate
America through its index funds. Do we want them controlling crypto networks, too? The approval
odds that Bloomberg analysts are citing, 95% for major altcoins, reflect a regulatory environment
that has swung from hostility to capture in record time. For years, the industry was crying out for
evidence-based policym. But what we have received is something closer to political theater. So,
where does this leave us? Well, the altcoin ETF gold rush is very real. Salana staking funds
are already trading. Multi-asset baskets are on the brink of approval. Pingu and Pudgy Penguins
NFT exposure is apparently around the corner. The only question is whether this represents
genuine progress or institutional co-option. The optimistic view is that regulated access
will drive adoption, legitimize crypto assets, and ultimately benefit the entire ecosystem.
More money flowing into crypto, even through institutionalized channels, should theoretically
benefit all holders. The pessimistic view, though, is that we’re watching crypto’s final surrender
to the traditional financial system. When JPEGs of cartoon penguins can be packaged into registered
investment companies, when presidential memecoins get ETF rappers, when yield farming becomes just
another institutional service. What exactly makes crypto different from any other speculative
asset class? The truth as usual probably lies somewhere in the middle. Institutional adoption
was always inevitable and some of these products, particularly staking ETFs, offer genuine utility
to investors who want crypto exposure without technical complexity. But the sheer number
of applications, the political nature of many products, and the speed of regulatory approval all
suggest an environment driven more by opportunism than by thoughtful development of crypto
infrastructure. Bloomberg’s James Safe aptly said of the Pangu filing, quote, the low filing
cost explains the flood, but actual approval, that’s a whole different story. Except it’s
increasingly looking like approval isn’t a story at all. When regulators are defaulting to yes,
unless something is obviously catastrophic, the bar for catastrophic becomes the only meaningful
filter. We about to find out whether institutional crypto adoption looks like sophisticated financial
innovation or just another Wall Street bubble machine applied to a different asset class. For
now though, the Penguins might be telling us the answer. Keep your eyes on those October deadlines,
though. If Bloomberg’s analysts are right about those 95% approval odds, the second half of 2025
is going to be very interesting indeed. As usual, the most entertaining outcome is probably the
most likely. Welcome to Peak Institutional Crypto Adoption. And if you want to learn more about how
deep Wall Street is into crypto nowadays, why not check out our latest report on institutional
adoption of RWA cryptos right over here. And if you’re not subscribed to the channel yet, well,
you can do that right over here. This is me, Nick, signing off. Thank you guys very much for
watching, and I’ll see you in the next video.
