After the request by 21Shares at the beginning of November, yesterday another request for the issuance of a spot XRP ETF in the USA was submitted to the SEC. another request for the issuance of a spot XRP ETF in the USA.
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21Shares, Canary Capital and Bitwise: the requests for the ETF on XRP
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The first three requests in this regard were those of Canary Capital, Bitwise, and indeed 21Shares.
The really curious thing is that these three requests were submitted before Trump’s electoral victory.
The fact is that before the victory of the Republican Trump, that is, under the Democratic administration of Joe Biden, not only had no crypto spot ETF ever been approved in the USA that was not on Bitcoin or Ethereum, but the SEC itself had even sued Ripple and XRP.
In fact, the goal of the SEC under Gary Gensler, appointed as the agency’s chairman by Joe Biden in 2021, was even to have XRP removed from exchanges by accusing it of being an unregistered security.
It is true that, also during the Biden administration, a court ruled that XRP should not be considered an unregistered security, but it is also true that the odds of the SEC approving an XRP spot ETF with a democratic administration remained quite low.
And yet, as many as three issuers submitted a request even before Trump’s victory, although they most likely did so because they were betting on the fact that he would be elected.
The turning point of Trump
Trump has already shown himself to be very crypto-friendly during the election campaign, to the point of officially tasking a specific working group, once he took office as president, with assessing the feasibility of establishing a national and official strategic reserve in Bitcoin in the USA.
Shortly after his victory, Gensler announced his resignation, which then became effective with the inauguration of the new president at the White House.
At that point, the interim presidency of the SEC passed to Mark Uyeda, a Republican and pro-crypto, while waiting for Trump to appoint the new president, who is expected to be Paul Atkins, also decidedly pro-crypto.
Therefore, with Trump’s victory, the probabilities that the SEC will approve a spot XRP ETF have skyrocketed.
However, according to the ETF expert from Bloomberg, James Seyffart, there is only a 65% chance that they will be approved by the end of the year, and in any case, the SEC has until October to make a decision.
It should be noted that in the past the SEC has always taken all the time possible to make a decision on the matter, therefore if the final deadline is set for October, it seems very difficult for approvals to come earlier.
The request of MEMX
Yesterday, it was learned about the filing with the SEC of yet another request for the issuance of a spot XRP ETF.
This is the request from MEMX, whose request explicitly mentions a “Commodity-Based Trust”.
On the fact that XRP cannot be considered a security, there is now a court ruling that certifies it in the USA. But that ruling does not define XRP as a commodity: it merely states that it cannot be considered an investment contract.
However, assets like cryptocurrencies that are not securities are commonly considered commodities, so much so that even Gensler’s SEC effectively recognized Bitcoin as a commodity. And the fact that it approved spot ETH ETFs suggests that it also considers Ethereum as such.
However, the other ETF requests on XRP have not been submitted as requests for the issuance of a trust based on commodity.
The fact that in this latest request this definition was used could indicate a change of pace, both on the part of the applicants, but especially on the part of the SEC.
By now, the requests for the issuance of crypto ETFs submitted to the SEC are dozens, on various altcoins, including Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Solana.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2025/02/18/21shares-has-paved-the-way-for-etfs-on-xrp/