Nasdaq Goes Full Meme: Files for SEC Approval on 21Shares’ Spot Dogecoin ETF
Wall Street’s favorite casino just doubled down on crypto absurdity. Nasdaq officially submitted paperwork to launch a Dogecoin ETF—because nothing says ’serious investment vehicle’ like a joke currency that started as a Shiba Inu meme.
The proposed 21Shares offering would track DOGE’s spot price, letting institutional investors YOLO into an asset whose fundamentals include Elon Musk tweets and Reddit hype cycles. Because clearly, what the market needs right now is more exposure to a coin that pumps 300% on weekends when liquidity vanishes faster than a crypto exchange’s cold wallet reserves.
SEC approval remains uncertain, but one thing’s clear: 2025 is shaping up to be the year finance fully embraces the ’money printer go brrr’ ethos—with extra woof.
Nasdaq submitted a 19b-4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve the listing of a spot Dogecoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) managed by 21Shares.
A 19b-4 filing is a part of the process for proposing an ETF to the SEC. Once acknowledged by the SEC, the application will be published in the Federal Register, tying the regulator to a decision deadline.
21Shares’ proposed Dogecoin ETF will operate as a passive investment product, with shares created and redeemed in blocks of 10,000 through authorized participants using cash transactions only. As per the filing, the trust will not employ leverage or derivatives.
Trading of ETF shares will be subject to Nasdaq’s surveillance procedures and trading rules. In supporting the proposal, Nasdaq claimed that its membership in the Intermarket Surveillance Group (ISG) provides strong surveillance-sharing agreements, enabling it to detect and prevent potential manipulation in the underlying Dogecoin market.
When the Switzerland-based crypto asset manager filed its S-1 form on April 9, it also announced an “exclusive” partnership with the House of Doge, which will help market the fund.
DOGE is currently the 8th biggest cryptocurrency by market cap at $26.6 billion, CoinGecko data shows.
If a Doge ETF is approved, it would become the first ETF to track a meme coin, a cryptocurrency that was initially created as a joke. But DOGE has evolved into more than that, inspiring the name of the government’s new initiative, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), helmed by technocrat Elon Musk.
Flurry Of Altcoin ETF Filings Under Trump Administration
21Shares application comes at a time when interest in altcoin-based funds has skyrocketed, evidenced by a wave of new filings and a more lenient regulatory environment under the Donald Trump administration.
Firms, including Grayscale, as well as Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Bitwise, and Canary Capital, are looking to get the SEC’s regulatory clearance for various crypto-related ETFs such as Solana (SOL), Ripple’s XRP, Litecoin (LTC), Cardano, and Official Trump (TRUMP).
Bloomberg analysts in February estimated that LTC ETFs (90%) have the highest likelihood of approval, followed by Dogecoin funds (75%), Solana (70%), and XRP (65%) products.
