SEC Greenlights Altcoin ETFs—Yes, Even the Meme Coins

Wall Street’s once-unthinkable crypto embrace hits hyperdrive as regulators approve spot ETFs for Ethereum, Solana, and—against all odds—Dogecoin. The 2025 ruling shocks traditional finance, where bankers still can’t decide if blockchain is a threat or just their next yacht payment.

How we got here: Grayscale’s legal win forced the SEC’s hand in 2024, but nobody predicted the floodgates would open this wide. Analysts whisper about political pressure as Trump-era deregulation meets Biden’s re-election tech push.

The fallout: Institutional money pours into ’high-risk’ alts, while Bitcoin maximalists seethe. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs quietly files paperwork for a Shiba Inu trust—proving once again that in finance, principles vanish faster than a leveraged trader’s margin.

Polymarket odds expect a slow summer for ETFs

Polymarket estimates match the general odds by Bloomberg’s analysts. The prediction market has relatively low odds for approvals in Q2, but higher odds for the end of 2025. The odds of approval before the end of Q2 are currently falling rapidly after the latest series of SEC delays.

The most active Polymarket pair is for the Solana ETF approval by the end of 2025. The market shows odds of 83%, lower than the 90% proposed by Bloomberg. The market is highly volatile, though with volumes of around $142K at this point. 

Other relatively high odds for ETF include Cardano (ADA), Litecoin (LTC), and XRP, with the highest odds of 87%. 

The ETF narrative no longer boosts altcoins as it did during the run-up to the Ethereum ETF approvals. Despite this, interest in launching new funds supports a selection of altcoins from older bull markets. The addition of those assets sparks hopes of recovery after years of trading far from peak valuations. 

ETF effects on crypto prices remain unpredictable. Both the BTC and ETH launches were followed by months of sluggish price action.

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