SEC Approves Canary's New Crypto ETFs

Bloomberg

Watch SEC Approves Canary's New Crypto ETFs - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00The first question is the obvious one. How did you get these ETFs through at a time when

00:04the SEC and the federal government is shut down? Well, Scarlett, thank you for having me.

00:10When the SEC approved the generic listing standards for cryptocurrencies back in September,

00:18that actually paved the way for what we're doing now. So those generic listing standards

00:23essentially open up the exchanges to be able to launch any cryptocurrency, single token cryptocurrency

00:29ETF that actually has a futures market in the U.S. for more than six months. So we were able to rely

00:35upon that rule to file these ETFs with no delay clause. Is there any downside to using the streamlined

00:44approval process that allows your filings to become effective after 20 days? In other words,

00:49what do you lose by not going through the usual lengthy product specific process that the SEC

00:56employees? Yeah, so it really depends on what you're trying to launch and how simple it is.

01:03For instance, Litecoin is very similar to Bitcoin. It's clearly not a security. And we've been engaging

01:11with the SEC for the last year now on comments on the Litecoin filing as well as HBAR. So both of those

01:18filings are pretty well complete. And we saw very little risk, if no risk at all, by moving forward.

01:25Now, some of them that are out for filing that have never received an SEC comment, some of the newer ones,

01:31those are ones that I would be more cautious on and wait. Got it. Got it. All right. So you're

01:35launching the first pure spot ETFs tracking some lesser known digital coins, Litecoin and Hedera or

01:42HBAR. Talk about what specific advantages being first to market and having that first to market status

01:49gives you. Now, look, first, the market makes a big difference. We noticed it with Bitcoin. So

01:55I was one of the groups that launched the first Bitcoin ETF along with 10 other issuers. So having

02:02everybody go on one day certainly hurt some of the smaller issuers and helped the larger ones such as

02:07BlackRock and Fidelity. Focusing on things that BlackRock and Fidelity aren't focusing on

02:14is definitely an edge here. But we also believe that Litecoin and Hedera are great blockchains,

02:20great tokens. They're both in the top 20 and they're both very well known with large communities.

02:25So we feel very good about bringing these to market and letting the market, you know, experience this as

02:32well. So let's talk about Litecoin specifically. It's a smaller altcoin. What is the best use case for

02:38this particular asset? Now, Litecoin is really was really made and meant to be a smaller, faster

02:46Bitcoin. So, for instance, you know, Bitcoin trades at $100,000 or more per, you know, per Bitcoin.

02:52It's utilized for larger transactions. But transaction times take about 10 minutes. Litecoin was built back

02:59in 2013 with the idea that it would be the silver to Bitcoin's gold. So it's really its use case is really

03:06for smaller transactions, faster transactions, and really is a use case in emerging markets.

03:13What about Hedera? Yeah, Hedera is really not even a blockchain. It's something that's a little bit

03:18unique. It's more of a mesh network of nodes that holds information. And it allows enterprise solutions

03:26to be able to actually grab data very quickly, which is why it's the leading technology utilized by

03:34enterprise. So there are now more than 100 crypto focus ETFs trading in the US. So it's a pretty

03:41competitive landscape, Stephen. And we've seen ETF analysts warn about oversaturation in this space.

03:47What is your strategy for standing out being first market certainly something to hang your hat on. But

03:52beyond that, once BlackRock comes out with its version of Litecoin or Hedera, how do you stand out?

03:57Look, I think obviously coming to market is very important. But we're also what a lot of people

04:04would consider crypto native. Most of our team has only ever done crypto. The other half of our team,

04:11we all worked together at Guggenheim launching its first ETFs over 10 years ago. So we both have the

04:17experience of launching ETFs in traditional markets, as well as a team that all they do is

04:22cryptocurrencies. So our focus at Canary is cryptocurrencies. It's really the only thing

04:28that we do here. And I think that we're going to stand out because this is where our knowledge base

04:33is. And I noticed you have a bunch of other crypto products that you're looking to launch,

04:37like Pengu and Tron. What's the timeline for that, Stephen? Those are really unknown. I mean,

04:43we're very excited, for instance, about Pengu because it is the very first filing that would include

04:49NFTs, particularly from Pudgy Penguins. So it would be, you know, if we're able to launch,

04:55it would hold Pengu plus NFTs. So it is very unique. And we really hope that that gets through. But I

05:02think there's a lot of work to do on both of those, given that they're a little bit lesser known. But in

05:09the world of crypto, they're very well.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended