Meme Coin Mania Meets Wall Street Skepticism in Canary Capital's PEPE ETF Proposal

Canary Capital's latest filing with the SEC has shed light on its proposed ETF to track the meme coin PEPE. The fund would hold spot PEPE and issue shares in 10,000-unit baskets, with a daily net asset value calculation at 4:00 p.m. ET.

The market reaction to this development was surprisingly subdued, with PEPE trading at US$0.00000359 on the day of the filing, only up 0.6% from the previous day. Trading volume rose by 10% to US$432 million, a relatively modest increase compared to past spikes driven by retail trading.

According to CoinShares research head James Butterfill, investor demand for meme coin ETFs remains weak. He notes that institutional buyers lack a clear investment case for these funds, citing the low popularity of altcoin ETFs outside of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP, which account for just 9% of total AUM.