Trump Media is reportedly making another venture into the digital assets space.
[contact-form-7]The social media firm owned by President Donald Trump is planning an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would hold cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ether and solana, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday (July 8), citing a regulatory filing.
According to the report, the “Crypto Blue Chip Fund” marks the company’s third filing for a crypto ETF, having already filed for a bitcoin-eEther product along with one solely connected to bitcoin. If and when they launch, Bloomberg noted, they’ll be part of a hectic field of crypto-focused offerings, with more than 10 bitcoin-specific funds already trading in the U.S.
Trump’s increasing connections to the digital asset world has been the target of criticism from ethics experts, the report added. They cite the potential for financial gain in areas where the president also makes policy. The White House maintains that Trump is walled off from the various businesses bearing his name.
Since his first term, Trump has changed his stance on crypto, embracing the industry on the campaign trail and appointing pro-crypto figures to his administration. The new regime has helped the price of bitcoin to climb, with the most popular crypto increasing 55% since October, now trading at around $108,000.
In other digital assets news, PYMNTS wrote last week about the “convergence of traditional finance (TradFi) and crypto markets” following announcements about tokenization projects from the likes of JPMorgan and Robinhood.
“While the initiatives may appear distinct, ranging from environmental credits to fractionalized equity exposure, the connective tissue is the same: moving traditional financial services onto the blockchain,” that report said. “These moves represent a coordinated push by financial giants to tokenize real-world assets (RWAs), sidestep traditional clearing infrastructure, and begin transitioning toward 24/7, programmable trading markets.”
However, these developments also pose existential questions for market regulators and central intermediaries. Do tokenized securities complement or compete with traditional capital markets? Can the current legal frameworks scale to cover these hybrid asset classes? And who is responsible when decentralized and centralized elements collide?
Tokenization, that report added, has entered a new era, with things like initial coin offerings (ICOs) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) set aside for a “wave of interest centers around tangible, regulated assets — stocks, bonds, commodities and now carbon credits.”
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