Nasdaq Files for Rule Change to List VanEck Avalanche ETF

Nasdaq has applied for a rule change with the SEC that would allow the exchange to list shares of a proposed exchange-traded fund tracking the spot price of Avalanche, according to a filing Thursday.

The 19b-4 filing comes a month after the fund giant submitted an application for a VanEck Avalanche ETF, and a little over two weeks after Nasdaq submitted an application for a rules change to list shares of a Grayscale Avalanche fund.

These filings and a slew of others tracking top altcoins have demonstrated issuers' growing efforts to address demand for digital asset-focused investment products after the successful debut of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs last year. The 11 spot bitcoin funds have generated more than $35 billion in net inflows.

Encouraged by the more favorable crypto regulatory environment of the Trump administration, asset managers in recent months have taken steps to offer altcoin-focused funds. On Thursday, 21Shares applied for a Dogecoin ETF, joining Grayscale and Bitwise who are also looking to list funds based on the popular meme coin.

Issuers have also been seeking to offer funds tracking prominent assets like Solana, XRP, Litecoin, and Sui.

In an email to Decrypt, Bloomberg ETF Analyst James Seyffart wrote that the "expectation is that both Avalanche and DOGE will ultimately be approved," with AVAX potentially receiving an SEC green light at the end of December and DOGE more likely in mid-October.

"We are waiting to see where this SEC will draw the line on what cryptos are allowed in an ETF wrapper," Seyffart wrote.

AVAX, the native token of the Avalanche layer-1 blockchain and 16th-largest cryptocurrency by market value, was recently trading at about $18.30—a 1.6% drop over the past 24 hours, according to data provider CoinGecko. AVAX is down over 87% from its all-time high of nearly $145 set in late 2021.

AVAX received a boost earlier this month when U.K.-based bank Standard Chartered initiated coverage, predicting it would jump to $250 by the end of the decade—a more than 1,300% spike at the time of its note.

Standard Chartered Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoff Kendrick noted Avalanche's unique approach to scaling through sets of dedicated L1 app networks (previously called subnets).

“Avalanche’s current small market cap means that incremental development improvements can have a big impact,” Kendrick said in the note. “As a result, we see AVAX outperforming both Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of relative price gains.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward