Major crypto ETF issuer 21Shares has made a big step toward launching an exchange-traded fund tied to Ripple-associated token XRP, following similar proposals from other asset managers.
XRP ETF Buzz Picks Up Steam
On Friday, 21Shares submitted an S-1 form to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — a requirement for companies looking to issue a new security and be listed on a public stock exchange.
If approved, the proposed 21Shares Core XRP Trust would be listed on the Cboe BZX Exchange. The custodian of the XRP held in the ETF would be Coinbase Custody Trust Company.
“21Shares remains committed to working towards expanding US investor access to the cryptocurrency asset class and we look forward to driving innovation in the U.S.,” the company said in a statement.
21Shares Core XRP Trust will track the price performance of the underlying XRP token based on the recently debuted CME CF Ripple-Dollar Real-Time Index. The company noted that the XRP investment product is intended to provide shareholders with a more “cost-efficient way” for investors to get exposure to XRP compared to buying and storing the crypto themselves.
As previously reported by ZyCrypto, Bitwise kicked off the spot XRP ETF race on Oct. 1. New asset manager Canary Capital later followed with an SEC filing of its own. Notably, the SEC has yet to greenlight a spot XRP exchange-traded fund, and if it does, the road to approval could be marred by challenges.
Is An XRP ETF Closer To Reality?
As you may know, the SEC has been mired in a legal brawl with Ripple for four years now after the regulator accused the firm of raising $1.3 billion via an unregistered securities sale of the XRP cryptocurrency.
Last year, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Analisa Torres declared that XRP by itself is not a security token. She, however, found that Ripple’s direct sales to institutional investors were securities. Later in August of this year, Judge Torres ordered Ripple to cough up $125 million in fines — which is considerably lower than the $2 billion the SEC had initially sought.
The SEC and Ripple are now tightly locked in an appeals process. The regulator is requesting the court to review its decisions regarding Ripple’s XRP sales on exchanges, as well as personal XRP sales by the company’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen.
Despite the enthusiasm around a potential XRP ETF, the odds of such a product going living on U.S. exchanges remain very slim. Nevertheless, Garlinghouse is convinced that the approval of XRP ETFs is “inevitable”. That being said, an XRP ETF