Get Ready for Crypto’s ETPalooza

The SEC wants to create generic listing standards for crypto ETPs. What will it mean for markets?

Usually in these CIO Memos I try to give a view on what’s happening in the market. For instance, last week I wrote about why it’s “Solana Season” and predicted a strong end-of-year push for Ethereum's top competitor.

Solana has rallied 7.72% since then, which is nice.

But watching the crypto market right now is like watching the Super Bowl pre-game show. Things are set up for a spectacular end-of-year rally, with rate cuts, surging ETP inflows, rising concerns about the dollar, and incredible momentum in tokenization and stablecoins. Yet as investors we’ve largely been stuck waiting. Why?

For one, August and September are historically the two worst months of the year for crypto. But the larger reason is that big developments—like recent bitcoin ETP approvals at major wirehouses, or progress on new legislation in Congress—often take time to bear fruit.

So, as we wait, I thought I’d give you a peek into what’s happening at the SEC regarding crypto ETP approvals. As I see it, the SEC is getting ready to blow the market wide open.

Generic Listing Standards

Spot crypto ETPs are currently approved by the SEC on a case-by-case basis. If you want to launch a spot crypto ETP in the U.S. based on a new asset—let’s say a Solana ETP or a Chainlink ETP—you have to file a special request with the SEC pleading for the right to do so. 

In your filing, you have to prove certain things about the market: that it is liquid enough to support an ETP, that it is not subject to manipulation, and so on.

This takes time, to put it mildly. The SEC’s review process for each filing takes up to 240 days, and even then there is no guarantee of approval. Exhibit A: The first spot bitcoin ETP filing occurred in 2013, but the SEC didn’t approve any until 2024. Filing has always been a costly and risky endeavor.

But as we speak, the SEC is working on creating “generic listing standards” for crypto ETPs. The idea is this: Under generic listing standards, as long as a filing meets certain clearly articulated requirements, SEC approval is virtually guaranteed. It’s also fast: Applications would be approved in 75 days or less.

What are the requirements?

The SEC is still working through that and accepting input from the industry. Right now, most proposals argue that issuers should be able to launch a spot crypto ETP as long as there is a futures contract for the underlying asset trading on a regulated U.S. futures exchange. Qualifying futures exchanges include giants like CME and Cboe, but they may also include lesser-known derivatives platforms like Coinbase Derivatives Exchange and Bitnomial. Assuming the more expansive list makes the grade, the list of crypto assets that could soon gain ETPs includes Solana, XRP, Chainlink, Cardano, Avalanche, Polkadot, Hedera, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash, among others. As more futures contracts launch, this list will presumably grow.

What History Tells Us

The adoption of generic listing standards—which could come as early as October—will likely usher in a ton of new crypto ETPs. This is intuitive, but it’s also backed up by ETF history.

Until late 2019, all ETFs—equity ETFs, bond ETFs, etc.—followed the one-by-one regulatory approval approach that crypto ETPs currently follow. But in 2019, the SEC adopted the “ETF Rule,” which created generic listing standards for stock and bond ETPs. What followed was a massive explosion in ETF issuance.

The chart below from ETFGI shows the number of ETFs listed in the U.S. by year. Before the adoption of the ETF Rule, the ETF industry brought on average 117 new ETFs to market each year. Since the ETF Rule went into place, that’s more than tripled to 370 per year.

Generic Listing Standards Dramatically Increased the Pace of ETF Issuance

Source: Bitwise Asset Management with data from ETFGI. ETFGI data sourced from ETF/ETP sponsors, exchanges, regulatory filings, Thomson Reuters/Lipper, Bloomberg, publicly available sources, and data generated in-house. Data from January 2003 to July 2025.

Along with the number of ETFs, the number of ETF issuers also ballooned, as it became push-button easy for companies to launch ETFs.

I would expect the same thing here. We should see dozens of single-asset crypto ETPs and the rise of index-based crypto ETPs, and I suspect we’ll see many—if not most—traditional asset managers launch spot crypto ETPs as well.

What This Means for Crypto Asset Prices

Investors could easily misread what this will mean for the market. The mere existence of a crypto ETP does not guarantee significant inflows. You need fundamental interest in the underlying asset.

The spot Ethereum ETPs launched in June 2024, for instance, but didn’t really start attracting assets until April 2025, when interest in stablecoins (which are mainly built on Ethereum) started to rise. Similarly, I suspect ETPs built on assets like Bitcoin Cash will have a hard time attracting flows unless the asset itself finds new life.

What the ETPs will mean, however, is that assets are more primed to rip—if and when fundamentals start to turn. Most of the world’s money is controlled by traditional investors, and it is vastly easier for these investors to allocate to crypto when an ETP exists.

There’s a bigger and perhaps less quantifiable point here: ETPs lower the mystery factor for crypto. They make it less intimidating, more visible, and more accessible to the average investor. Chainlink or Avalanche or Polkadot are no longer strange-sounding tokens for crypto-natives with a dozen wallet addresses; they’re a ticker anyone can access in a brokerage account. That attunes people more to crypto in real life, and its myriad use cases. They’re more likely to notice the article about Chainlink partnering with Mastercard on payments, or Wyoming using Avalanche to issue stablecoins, or Standard Chartered exploring XRP-powered technology for cross-border payments. 

The SEC adopting generic listing standards is a “coming of age” moment for crypto, a signal that we’ve reached the big leagues. But it’s also just the beginning.

Risks and Important Information

No Advice on Investment; Risk of Loss: Prior to making any investment decision, each investor must undertake its own independent examination and investigation, including the merits and risks involved in an investment, and must base its investment decision—including a determination whether the investment would be a suitable investment for the investor—on such examination and investigation.

Crypto assets are digital representations of value that function as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, or a store of value, but they do not have legal tender status. Crypto assets are sometimes exchanged for U.S. dollars or other currencies around the world, but they are not currently backed nor supported by any government or central bank. Their value is completely derived by market forces of supply and demand, and they are more volatile than traditional currencies, stocks, or bonds.

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The opinions expressed represent an assessment of the market environment at a specific time and are not intended to be a forecast of future events, or a guarantee of future results, and are subject to further discussion, completion and amendment. The information herein is not intended to provide, and should not be relied upon for, accounting, legal or tax advice, or investment recommendations. You should consult your accounting, legal, tax or other advisors about the matters discussed herein.