Franklin Templeton’s proposed XRP ETF inches closer to approval

The Franklin Templeton XRP Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) has appeared on the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) website under the ticker XRPZ, as confirmed by Cryptopolitan early Friday. The listing is only a preparatory step and does not indicate approval or active trading start.

The DTCC website is a database that lists the names of live exchange-traded funds and those in the pre-launch phase, but it only does so as a formality and does not track the likelihood of approvals ahead of their official market debut.

Franklin Templeton’s XRPZ listed on DTCC post-S-1 filing amendment

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart had reported on Tuesday that Franklin Templeton submitted an amended Form S-1 registration statement for the XRP fund. The changes made include the shortened “8(a)” language, a legal “loophole” that allows the registration to automatically take effect after 20 days without a direct US Securities and Exchange (SEC) sign-off, unless the agency intervenes.

The updated prospectus sent to the regulator on Tuesday specifies that the Franklin XRP Trust will hold XRP tokens as its primary asset and will track the digital asset’s market performance. Once approved, the ETF is expected to list on the Cboe BZX Exchange.

Franklin Templeton’s filing is among several similar ETF submissions and proposed filing changes made in early November. Bitwise and Canary Capital filed amendments last week, removing the traditional “delaying amendment” clause to limit the SEC’s ability to control the timeline of approval.

Grayscale Investments also lodged its second amendment (Amendment No. 2) to its own XRP-related Form S-1 on Monday. 

Crypto In America podcast host and former FOX News correspondent Eleanor Terrett said Canary Capital could see its XRP ETF approved by November 13, pending final clearance from Nasdaq through its 8-A filing, and whether the government shutdown ends sooner. 

“The government reopening could affect the timing, potentially moving it up if the filing is complete and the SEC is satisfied, or back if staff propose additional comments,” she wrote on X in late October.

The strategy deployed by Franklin Templeton copies that of issuers behind Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC), and Hedera (HBAR) ETFs, which successfully launched under similar automatic-effect rules last month.

Just before the 38-day-long and counting US government shutdown began, these ETFs managed to clear the regulatory process and list without formal SEC approval delays. Bitwise’s BSOL ETF recorded an impressive $56 million in first-day trading volume, the highest debut among more than 850 ETFs launched to date.

Franklin Templeton ‘optimistic’ on digital asset market products

Franklin Templeton, the seven-decade-old financial firm that manages over $1.5 trillion in global assets, is among the most active traditional finance entities to launch crypto-based investment vehicles.

Earlier this year, it debuted spot EZBC (Bitcoin) and EZET (Ethereum) funds, which collectively attracted over $500 million in institutional capital within their first quarter. 

The New York-based company has also started a blockchain-based project in Hong Kong, launching the region’s first tokenized money-market fund together with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) under its new Fintech 2030 roadmap.

The Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund is registered in Luxembourg and backed by short-term US Treasuries, using blockchain tokens in place of investor shares. Working with HSBC and OSL Group, one of Hong Kong’s 11 licensed virtual-asset platforms, Franklin Templeton is testing instant settlements through Project Ensemble, an HKMA sandbox for tokenized deposits. 

HSBC executives believe the tokenized platform could help bump fund flows and improve cross-system interoperability, which could later influence ETF operations in tokenized form. 

XRP ETF crosses $100 million in AUM after weeks of trading

Away from pending ETF approvals, the live REX-Osprey XRP ETF (XRPR), launched on September 18, surpassed $100 million in assets under management (AUM) within just five weeks, according to the issuer’s report in late October.

Outside US markets, the Hashdex Nasdaq XRP ETF (XRPH11), the world’s first spot XRP ETF, listed in Brazil, has accumulated approximately 7.17 billion Brazilian reais (around $1.33 billion) in total assets from over 300,000 investors, per statistics shared by the ETF provider’s website.

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