ProShares’ XRP Futures ETF Launch Hits a Snag—April 30 Deadline Scrapped

Wall Street’s latest crypto tease stumbles out the gate. ProShares won’t be launching its hotly anticipated XRP futures ETFs tomorrow—Bloomberg reports the rollout’s been shelved indefinitely.

Another ’coming soon’ crypto product stuck in regulatory purgatory? Color us shocked. The SEC’s allergy to clear rules strikes again, leaving traders to gamble on offshore platforms instead.

Funny how Wall Street’s FOMO only kicks in after retail’s already been front-running these plays for years.

Permission to launch XRP futures secured

ProShares secured SEC approval to launch three XRP futures-based ETFs: the Ultra XRP ETF offering 2x leverage, the Short XRP ETF offering -1x inverse exposure, and the Ultra Short XRP ETF offering -2x inverse exposure. 

According to SEC filings, the regulator finalized the approval earlier this year, during a period of increased momentum in crypto-related financial products.

These ProShares ETFs will become the second, third, and fourth XRP-related ETFs approved in the US. The first XRP futures ETF, managed by Teucrium, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on April 8 and reported positive initial trading volumes.

ProShares also has a pending application for a spot XRP ETF with the SEC, along with seven other similar applications. Most of the filings have a second deadline set for late May, as their first deadline in April passed without a decision from the SEC. 

Additionally, some filings have a final deadline of mid-October, like the conversion requirement by Grayscale and the 21shares proposal.

Aby JPMorgan estimates that XRP exchange-traded products (ETPs) can reach between $4 billion and $8 billion in net inflows, based on the track record of ETFs exposed to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).