DOGE and TRUMP ETFs May Be Coming, but Should Institutional Investors Trade Them?

It has taken more than a decade for institutions to take Bitcoin (BTC) seriously as an investment vehicle, even though well-known financial pioneers had embraced the largest cryptocurrency on the market years earlier.

But even one year after the launch of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which saw adoption from pension funds, hedge funds and even universities, One issuer takes it a step further.

The latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission aim to bring meme ETFs — such as those tracking Dogecoin (DOGE) or US President Donald Trump’s Trump coin (TRUMP) — to the market.

Not only is this a bold move since DOGE and TRUMP are much less established and legitimate tokens, especially in the eyes of Wall Street, but memecoins provide no actual benefit, unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum (ETH). Their value comes simply from how much people think it’s worth making launching an ETF that tracks coins an ethical debate.

“Opinions vary widely on the value of meme currencies. It’s a very powerful tool,” said James Angell, a faculty member at Georgetown University’s McDonough-Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy. “I can’t see its long-term value, but others have different opinions.” “However, the sponsor of crypto-based ETFs must be very careful in marketing the ETFs. It would be highly unethical to market such ETFs as a prudent investment vehicle.

Steve McClurg, former CEO of Valkyrie and founder of Canary Capital, a hedge fund that has applied for several non-meme cryptocurrency ETFs, said he personally is not a fan of memecoin ETFs, and while the company considered filing, it decided to… The end no.

“I don’t know how you can be an agent running an ETF knowing that’s the foundation on which it’s based [asset] “It’s supposed and designed to get to zero,” he said. Although meme currencies are not technically designed to go to zero, they are highly vulnerable to collapsing once the hype surrounding them passes.

However, he believes that MimiCoin ETFs will eventually be approved. The former SEC headed by Gary Gensler, who resigned Monday after Trump became president, has so far approved several Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, but has refused to recognize a potential Solana (SOL) ETF, for which several issuers have filed initial documents. for him.

more than 30 more orders Still pending, three of them are tied to memcoins.

“It is very difficult for the SEC to have the president choose the commissioners to reject the currency that the president put forward,” he said.

Meme coins have long divided the cryptocurrency community. Some find it fun to trade, as they can make a big profit quickly through so-called pumping and dumping, but others find it worrying, especially when issued by the country’s president.

“Call me old-fashioned, but I think presidents should focus on running the country and not releasing fraudulent tokens,” Nick Carter, a cryptocurrency influencer and venture capitalist, said in an article. Share on X. Carter was a staunch supporter of Trump.

Carter believes there are many conflicts of interest when bosses start or run a business, let alone launch a cryptocurrency or decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol for which they are setting policy. Last year, new President Donald Trump introduced A The cryptocurrency lending platform is called World Liberty Financial.