21Shares Joins the Race to Launch an XRP ETF With SEC Filing

Cryptocurrency exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuer 21Shares needs to provide American buyers publicity to XRP.

The Swiss agency on Friday filed an S-1 type with the Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) to launch an XRP ETF.

If authorised, the 21Shares Core XRP Belief would observe the worth of the seventh-biggest digital coin by market cap, through shares that commerce all through the day.

The agency mentioned in a press release that it “stays dedicated to working in direction of increasing U.S. investor entry to the cryptocurrency asset class, and we look ahead to driving innovation within the U.S.”

XRP is a digital coin created by the founders of fintech firm Ripple. 21Shares points ETFs, and operates spot Bitcoin and Ethereum funds within the U.S. following approvals from the SEC earlier this 12 months.

Different asset managers—together with crypto asset manager Bitwise—hope to launch an ETF that tracks the worth of XRP. Asset supervisor Grayscale additionally recently launched an XRP Trust, and has beforehand transformed its related Bitcoin and Ethereum closed-end funds into correct ETFs as soon as the SEC authorised such merchandise for buying and selling.

Nonetheless, the SEC is at the moment embroiled in a yearslong lawsuit with the Ripple after hitting the agency with a $1.3 billion lawsuit, alleging that that it bought unregistered securities within the type of XRP.

Ripple final 12 months scored a partial court win towards the regulator when a choose dominated that programmatic gross sales of XRP to retail buyers didn’t qualify as securities. The choose dominated that $728 million price of contracts for institutional gross sales did represent unregistered securities gross sales, however the information was nonetheless broadly seen as a win for the crypto trade.

The SEC has since sought a $2 billion nice from Ripple, however a New York courtroom ordered the corporate pay only a $125 million penalty. The SEC has since appealed, however Ripple seems assured it is going to prevail once more, with the agency’s Chief Authorized Officer Stuart Alderoty recently telling Decrypt that he believes the transfer will “backfire” and profit the crypto trade within the course of.

Regardless of the continuing authorized tussle, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse mentioned in an interview final week that he believes SEC approval of an XRP ETF is “inevitable” given the regulator’s go-ahead to Bitcoin and Ethereum merchandise.

Edited by Andrew Hayward