U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media company, Truth Social, is wasting no time in trying to launch a spot bitcoin BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Crypto asset manager Yorkville America Digital, who is sponsoring the fund, filed an S-1 document with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday, just two days after filing a 19b-4 document.
Typically, issuers upload the S-1, a document used to register an offering of asset-backed securities, first. The listing exchange then files a 19b-4 — necessary to propose a rule change by a self-regulatory organization (SRO), after. But NYSE Arca, an arm of the New York Stock Exchange, uploaded documents before Truth Social filed its own paperwork.
While the reasons are unclear, the 19-b4 filing ties the SEC to a strict deadline of 240 days to approve or reject the filing, while the agency doesn’t have to adhere to a deadline when an S-1 is filed.
If approved and listed, Trump’s bitcoin ETF would trade under the name Truth Social Bitcoin ETF with its assets being custodied by Foris DAX Trust Company, which also serves as the custodian for Crypto.com’s assets.
The fund would join a long list of already existing spot bitcoin ETFs, including from issuers like BlackRock, Grayscale, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, and more. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has become one of the most successful ETF launches in the history of U.S. ETFs, with nearly $70 billion in assets since launch.
