Dogecoin Has Made It to Wall Street

Are meme coins a legitimate investment now? Well, Wall Street seems to think so. Last week, REX Financial and Osprey Funds launched the first Dogecoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Basically, an ETF is a bundle of assets, which can include stocks, bonds, commodities, and now memecoins, that trades on the stock market as a single stock. A classic example are S&P 500 ETFs, funds that own shares of every company on the major Wall Street index

In the case of the REX-Osprey Doge ETF, the fund uses financial derivatives—futures contracts, swap agreements, and other financial instruments tied to Dogecoin’s price—to create an investment that mirrors the coin’s moves. In other words, investors aren’t purchasing Dogecoin itself. In a press release, the firms said the goal is to give people exposure to the meme coin’s potential rewards and risks via a regular brokerage account.

“Dogecoin’s value is often influenced by social media trends and community sentiment. This ETF captures that unique dynamic, while investors should remain aware that memecoins can experience significant volatility and rapid price swings,” the fund’s factsheet warns.

Still, demand for this type of investment appears to be significant, with nearly $17 million flowing into the fund on its first day.

Competitors like 21Shares, Grayscale, and Bitwise are already lining up their own Dogecoin ETFs, pending regulatory approval.

This is all good news for people who already own Dogecoin, as its price has gone up 10% this month.

The launch of this ETF (and other related funds that are on the way) further legitimizes cryptocurrencies in general as a mainstream investment. Just last year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the first Bitcoin ETFs, a full 15 years after Bitcoin debuted in 2009 as a digital currency.

Now it’s memecoins’ turn. Based on internet jokes and trends, these cryptocurrencies are not usually considered serious moneymakers. Dogecoin, one of the original memecoins, is itself derived from a 2013 meme featuring silly photos of a Shiba Inu dog paired with even goofier captions in comics sans font. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, memecoins don’t even pretend to have a utility, and most lose all of their value in rapid pump-and-dump frenzies—if they gain value at all, that is.

The launch of the Dogecoin ETF last week also happened to coincide with new SEC rules that ease the requirements for launching crypto ETFs. This move is another example of the Trump administration’s notably pro-crypto stance and disregard for the related investor risks associated with the space.

Since the start of his second term, Trump’s administration has shepharded through industry-friendly regulations for stablecoins and dropped investigations into Jesse Powell, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, as well as the crypto futures betting platform Polymarket.

Additionally, Trump signed an executive order in March establishing a federal strategic Bitcoin reserve and a digital asset stockpile. He also named David Sacks, former PayPal COO, as the White House AI & Crypto Czar.

Trump’s crypto-friendly policies make sense when you consider that he’s managed to make a multi-billion-dollar fortune from the industry. According to a Forbes analysis, much of his current net worth now comes from crypto.

Now he stands to possibly make even more money, as REX and Osprey filed for permission in January to launch ETFs for several other cryptocurrencies, including Trump’s own memecoin.