SEC Needs More Time to Decide on Polkadot, Hedera ETFs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has delayed its decision on separate applications for rules changes that would enable the listing of exchange-traded funds tracking the spot price for Polkadot and Hedera, plus a third fund based on the performance of Bitcoin and Ethereum, according to filings Thursday. 

The regulator has until June 11 to weigh in on 19b-4 requests submitted by the Nasdaq Exchange for the Canary HBAR ETF and conversion of a Grayscale Polkadot Trust. It will have until June 10 to decide on a similar filing by the New York Stock Exchange for a Bitwise Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF. 

Canary Capital, Grayscale Investments, and Bitwise Investments submitted filings for the funds earlier this year. They are among a slew of ETFs that issuers have proposed in recent months to track major altcoins following last year’s wildly successful debut of products tracking the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Issuers have 72 crypto-related or -focused ETFs awaiting an SEC green light.

Last week, Canary submitted an application for a fund tracking Tron’s TRX token and would include staking benefits. It has also proposed spot Solana, PENGU, and Sui ETFs, among its filings. Grayscale has proposed funds based on Solana, Cardano, XRP, Dogecoin, Litecoin, and Avalanche, while Bitwise has applied for ETFs tracking DOGE and Aptos, among others. 

Issuers, including crypto-focused companies and traditional finance firms, have applied for funds based on options trading and publicly traded companies that operate in the space. 

“Gonna be a wild year,” quipped Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas in a recent X post.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) manages nearly $18 billion in AUM, the second most among the 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs that received SEC approval last year. It was a conversion from an existing trust. The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF controls about $3.6 billion in AUM, the fifth most among these products. 

These Bitcoin funds oversee about $100 billion in AUM, and have been among the fastest-growing products in the ETF industry’s 32-year history, spurring demand for additional crypto funds. 

Hedera is up about 5% on the day, while Polkadot has jumped nearly 7% over the past 24 hours.

Edited by Andrew Hayward