Can meme coin ETFs turn dumb bits into real bucks?

“Trump himself just launched his own meme coin. If that’s legal, why shouldn’t a doge ETF be?”

1/23/25 12:50PM

Meme coins want to play with the grown-ups in finance, and to prove it, a whole new slew of meme-coin-based ETFs have been submitted for approval.

The mind-boggling rapid institutionalization and the push for normalizing meme coins comes just a couple weeks after bitcoin ETF’s first birthday.

On January 22, Bitwise filed a for a dogecoin ETF trust in Delaware, and the day before, Rex Osprey filed for seven (!!!) spot crypto ETFs, including a dogecoin ETF, a Trump ETF, a Bonk ETF, an XRP ETF, as well as relatively more traditional ones, like ethereum and solana ETFs.

Bitwise Doge ETF likely coming soon.. and yes I checked and this is def legit (vs some whack job committing forgery for a quick pump a la BlackRock XRP that one time). pic.twitter.com/MxoswD0IFy
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) January 22, 2025

Doge — meme coins’ eldest sibling, at 11 years old — is the seventh-largest crypto, with a $52 billion market cap. It’s up 338% in the past year, and is experiencing a huge boost thanks to its No. 1 fan and DOGE leader Elon Musk.

The newest big meme coins on the scene, trump and $MELANIA , launched just before the presidential inauguration. The five-day-old Trump meme coin has a $7.5 billion market cap and ranks 29th in market cap of all cryptocurrencies, according to CoinGecko.

Whether Trump 2.0 will usher in the materialization of altcoin and meme coin ETFs remains to be seen, but the trend is gaining momentum.

Two Prime Digital Assets CEO Alexander Blume told Sherwood News that these ETF applications are realistic.

“Our new regulatory regime looks to be much more permissive toward crypto,” he said. “Trump himself just launched his own meme coin. If that’s legal, why shouldn’t a doge ETF be?”

Arman Meguerian, founder and CEO of investment platform Timestamp, had some reservations about the new ETFs containing “the most speculative of crypto assets.”

“I don’t oppose these proposed ETFs for doge, bonk, Trump, and possibly other meme coins. If the market demands such products, then they should be allowed,” Meguerian said. “However, investors should be aware of the risk involved and invest with the appropriate precautions in mind. In the big picture of this industry, the highest-quality asset is bitcoin.”

Last year, VanEck and 21Shares filed applications for solana ETFs, and Cboe followed with an application to list them on its exchange, starting the clock ticking for the SEC to make a decision on them by March.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy is a financial journalist who’s written for Dow Jones, The Financial Times Group, and Business Insider.

Sage D. Young

21h

DeFi players scramble to plug bad debt from KelpDAO exploit

Industry heavyweights such as Lido, EtherFi, and Mantle have proposed substantial amounts of ethereum to backstop Aave, the largest lending protocol.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

4/24/26

Bitcoin ETFs take in more than $2 billion in 8 days

The path to $80,000 is clear in the short term, according to one analyst.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

dead-cat bounce?

4/23/26

Bitcoin faces $80,000 resistance level

“Out of the woods short-term? No. Bitcoin crossing $78K is a bounce, not a bottom,” according to Zaid Khan.

Walking The Divide: Nicosia, The World's Last Divided Capital

Sage D. Young4/22/26

Justin Sun sues Trump-backed World Liberty over frozen tokens

Crypto billionaire Justin Sun, owner of the world’s most expensive banana, was named an adviser to World Liberty Financial the day after investing $30 million in the project. (He’d later boost that with $45 million more.) Sun has long been a supporter of President Trump, and has not once, but twice topped a competition to amass the most $TRUMP coins. But it seems even for Sun, the gold has turned brass.

Sun announced on social media that he’s filed a lawsuit in a California federal court against the crypto project backed by Trump.

The lawsuit alleges World Liberty engaged in an “illegal scheme to seize property” and “positioned itself as the new boogeyman” by stripping Sun of his governance rights, threatening to burn his WLFI tokens, and freezing his stash, which at times were worth $1 billion, according to the complaint dated on Tuesday.

“I have tried in good faith to resolve this situation with the World Liberty project team without resorting to litigation,” Sun wrote in a lengthy X post on Tuesday night. “But the project team has refused my requests to unfreeze my tokens and restore my rights as a token holder. They have left me with no choice but to turn to the courts.”

The complaint also alleged that World Liberty appears to be in financial trouble, citing concerns over whether the project can repay an on-chain loan that was collateralized by using, at the time, $5 billion worth of WLFI. The token reached an all-time low less than two weeks ago.

Despite the escalation with World Liberty, Sun said the lawsuit does not change his feelings about Trump or his administration. “I have always been — and remain — an ardent supporter of President Trump and his Administration’s efforts to make America crypto friendly,” he said.