Canary Capital Seeks SEC Approval for ETF Holding PENGU and Pudgy Penguins NFTs

Crypto asset managers continue to bet big on altcoins, with the latest exchange-traded fund issuer, Canary Capital, seeking regulatory approval to list a fund tracking Pudgy Penguins (PENGU).

Nashville, Tennessee-based Canary Capital on Thursday filed an S-1 form seeking approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its Canary PENGU ETF—a fund that will hold both the token in question and NFTs from the prominent Ethereum NFT collection.

PENGU is the Solana-based token of the Pudgy Penguins NFT project. The token launched in January, shooting up in value before crashing hard alongside most other meme coins. It’s now priced 90% below the high of $0.068 it touched following its launch, CoinGecko data shows. 

The token saw a short-lived price spike Thursday following the announcement, but has since lost that momentum and is down by 2% on the day. PENGU is the 161st most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap, as of this writing.

Demand for smaller coins and tokens is pushing asset managers to file applications with the SEC—a byproduct of the more crypto-friendly policies of U.S. President Donald Trump. 

Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz told Decrypt that the project was “excited to be a part of crypto history with the first NFT and coin filing.”

ETFs are popular investment vehicles that trade on stock exchanges and give investors exposure to an underlying asset. The SEC gave the green light to Bitcoin ETFs last year, leading to a flood of capital into the space. 

Then, in July, Ethereum ETFs started trading after the regulator quietly approved the products. The funds haven’t been as successful as their Bitcoin counterparts, but demand for crypto-focused products in traditional financial forms has been strong. 

Canary Capital, VanEck, 21Shares and Bitwise, are among those trying to get ETFs tracking coins such as XRP, Solana, and Litecoin, among others, on the market for U.S. investors.

Edited by James Rubin and Andrew Hayward