Canary Likely to Hit Pause on ETF Filings With XRP, Eyes SEC Shift for What’s Next

Canary Capital will likely hit pause on new crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) filings for the remainder of the year, with CEO Steve McClurg saying the firm has already submitted applications for every token currently eligible under existing regulatory guidelines.

Speaking in an interview with CoinDesk, McClurg said the XRP ETF launched this week and a pending Solana SOL$143.68 product round out the company’s current slate.

“After that, we will have filed everything that falls under the generic listing standards,” McClurg said, referring to the SEC’s framework that allows certain crypto-backed exchange-traded funds to move forward without lengthy review processes.

Under these standards, a crypto asset must meet criteria like having a futures market that has traded for more than six months. That bar leaves only a short list of assets Canary believes can currently qualify.

McClurg noted that the firm will now shift its focus toward managing existing products and awaiting changes in how the Securities and Exchange Commission treats crypto ETFs. For any new launches, “we’re just waiting for them to qualify, either under generics or via a 19b-4 approval,” he said, referencing a separate, more involved process for ETF authorization.

On Thursday, Canary brought the first spot XRP ETF to the market, which debuted with $58 million in trading volume, making it one of the most successful ETF launches this year, according to Bloomberg's ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.

McClurg believes the XRP fund could outperform its Solana counterparts, which launched earlier this month, as the XRP network is more familiar to traditional finance players than Solana, which is more embedded in the crypto-native ecosystem, he said.