Pepe May Follow Dogecoin to Wall Street—But ETF Investors Aren’t Buying Meme Hype

Canary Capital put Pepe in the spotlight on Wednesday with a application for an exchange-traded fund that tracks the meme coin’s price, but the token’s muted response could serve as the latest sign of Wall Street’s tepid appetite for vibrationally traded assets.

On Thursday, Pepe changed hands for about $0.00000359, up about 0.6% from the past day, according to Coin gecko. The day before, trading volume rose 10% to $432 million.

Not long ago, meme coins served as major growth drivers for companies like Wintermute. Still, the crypto market maker acknowledged last year that its prediction that a core asset manager would specifically debut a meme coin ETF Dogecoinwas intended that way with its tongue in its cheek.

Today, four crypto asset managers offer US-listed Dogecoin ETFs. Still, it remains “very difficult for institutional investors to build a credible investment base around something like Doge, which may be more focused on the retail audience,” James Butterfill, head of research at crypto asset manager CoinShares, told me. Declutter.

Dogecoin ranks 17th among all crypto ETFs tracked by CoinShares, generating $13 million in inflows to date. Outside of tracking ETFs Bitcoin, Ethereum, SolanaAnd XRPButterfill noted that ETFs linked to other altcoins represent 9% of total assets under management.

“They’re just not popular with investors,” he said. “It’s the big four and not much else.”

Declutter has contacted Canary for comment.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins indicated last November that most cryptocurrencies, including meme coins, should not be treated as securities. That feeling was strengthened according to SEC guidelines released last month, which categorized meme coins as a form of “digital collectibles.”

Below generic listing standards for crypto ETFs established last year, exchanges can list commodity-based ETFs without needing case-by-case approval. One of the most important factors is that the underlying digital asset must have a six-month history of regulated futures trading.

Pepe futures are currently traded on crypto exchange Kraken. Canary’s filing noted that contracts for the meme coin are “typically traded on regulated or registered trading platforms.”

Canary has filed for ETFs tracking other meme coins, including Mog, Pudgy Penguins’ PENGU, and President Donald Trump’s meme coin TRUMP. Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas expressed Skepticism that the Trump-related ETF would pass when Canary’s filing landed on the SEC’s desk last year, citing a lack of futures trading.

Balchunas ever noted Unpleasant Declutter that the ETF industry is known for ‘throwing spaghetti at the wall’. Meanwhile, Butterfill on Thursday described a flood of subscriptions to ETFs from some issuers as a “machine gun approach.”

In some respects, Tuttle Capital Management has taken further steps to address the sword. In January, the ETF issuer filed applications for leveraged TRUMP, BONK and MELANIA ETFs. But the SEC has not yet issued a final ruling on these applications.