Cboe Shakes Up Crypto Markets—Files for First US Spot Tron ETF with Staking Kickbacks

Wall Street’s latest crypto gambit just got spicy. The Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) is pushing regulators to greenlight a groundbreaking Tron-based ETF—one that would let investors earn staking rewards while holding the fund. No more self-custody headaches, just pure passive income (and, of course, the usual ETF management fees).

Why it matters: This marks the first attempt to package Tron’s high-yield staking mechanics into a SEC-regulated wrapper. If approved, it could lure yield-starved institutional money into Justin Sun’s controversial ecosystem—regardless of whether the SEC still considers TRX an unregistered security.

The fine print: Cboe’s filing conspicuously avoids mentioning how staking rewards will be taxed—a deliberate omission that’ll have accountants and crypto bros alike scrambling for answers. Because what’s finance without a little regulatory ambiguity?

Bottom line: Another day, another attempt to bridge DeFi’s wild yields with TradFi’s hunger for structured products. Just don’t ask who’s ultimately holding the bag when the staking APYs inevitably compress.

What does the fund contain?

The ETF, sponsored by Canary Capital, plans to stake a portion, potentially all, of its TRX holdings through one or more trusted providers, with staking rewards that contribute directly to funding NAV.

Per the fund’s S-1 filed April 18, this structure enables investors to gain exposure to TRX’s spot price while earning yield from the network’s delegated proof-of-stake system. The current TRX staking yield sits around 4.6% APR, per StakingRewards.

The ETF WOULD track the CoinDesk TRX USD CCIX 60-minute New York Rate. The Pricing Benchmark aggregates notional TRX spot trades across major venues and is updated every 15 seconds. Using this index, net asset value will be calculated daily at 4 P.M. ET.

Shares will be created and redeemed in 10,000-share baskets for cash only, with BitGo as custodian. All staking activity will be performed at the trust level, keeping authorized participants isolated from direct TRX exposure or staking delegation rights.

Arguments for accepting the ETF

Importantly, Cboe argues that the proposed product does not require a surveillance-sharing agreement with a “regulated market of significant size,” the threshold first introduced in the SEC’s 2018 Winklevoss disapproval order.

Instead, it cites recent SEC approvals of spot Bitcoin and ethereum products, where futures market size was deemed insufficient but “other means” to detect and deter manipulation were accepted. Cboe asserts similar justification applies here, referencing TRX’s decentralized market structure, deep liquidity, around-the-clock global trading, and high degree of arbitrage activity.

The proposal details how TRX’s continuous trading, lack of centralized pricing, and absence of corporate data disclosures reduce susceptibility to manipulation. It highlights that any attempt to influence price on a single venue would require broader global market distortion, countered by arbitrage mechanisms.

The trust’s cold storage of assets, dissemination of intraday indicative value every 15 seconds, and publicly available NAV data further support Cboe’s claim that investor protections are sufficiently met.

SEC approval would mark the first time a US-listed crypto ETF includes a native staking component. While Ethereum-based funds approved in 2024 excluded staking to sidestep regulatory ambiguity, the TRX filing tests whether delegated proof-of-stake tokens can coexist with public fund structures. Filings for other funds to stake assets have been delayed until June.

Notably, the filing does not disclose a ticker or specific staking provider but confirms that all rewards will FLOW back into the trust. The trust also declines to claim any rights to forked or airdropped assets.

Cboe’s request aligns with broader efforts by ETF sponsors to differentiate crypto products beyond basic price exposure. With management fees on Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs trending toward zero, staking income presents a mechanism to offset costs and attract capital seeking yield in a low-interest-rate environment.

If approved, the Canary Staked TRX ETF could set a precedent for staking-enabled ETPs across other delegated PoS networks, such as Solana, Polkadot, and Cosmos.

The SEC has yet to issue a timeline for its decision on the proposed rule change.