The race to standardize how US exchanges list spot crypto ETFs appears to be entering its endgame, with quiet but coordinated rule-filing tweaks that could unlock single-asset products beyond bitcoin and ether—most notably XRP and Dogecoin.
On X, chairman and president of The ETF Store Nate Geraci captured the mood among issuers and exchanges: “Major exchanges continue to quietly work w/ SEC behind the scenes on generic listing standards for spot crypto ETFs… Given final deadlines on existing spot crypto ETF filings, [it’s] reasonable to expect this would be in place by early October. Then crypto ETF floodgates open.”
Why Spot XRP And Dogecoin ETFs Are Closer Than Ever
What’s changed is not a splashy Commission order, but the methodical convergence of three national exchanges—Cboe BZX, NYSE Arca, and Nasdaq—on nearly harmonized generic listing standards (GLS) for Commodity-Based Trust Shares. Their proposals would allow qualifying commodity ETPs—including those that hold “digital asset commodities”—to list without bespoke 19b-4 approvals each time, provided the products meet prescriptive criteria and the exchanges maintain robust surveillance. NYSE Arca’s new Rule 8.201-E (Generic), Nasdaq’s amendments to Rule 5711(d), and Cboe’s overhauled Rule 14.11(e)(4) all point the same direction: make spot crypto ETF approvals systematic rather than one-off, while preserving market-integrity guardrails.
A key technical edit running through the filings is how the term “commodity” is defined. Greg Xethalis, General Counsel at Multicoin Capital, revealed the secret talks today via X: “CBOE BZX, the NYSE and NASDAQ today filed amendments to their Commodity-Based Trust Shares ETP Generic Listing Standards.
The amendments largely touch on a technical edit to remove ‘excluded commodities’ from the definition of ‘commodity’ in the GLS,” a belt-and-suspenders move that prevents accidental sweep-in of instruments like interest-rate indexes or currencies under the Commodity Exchange Act’s “excluded commodity” heading. Nasdaq’s filing spells it out, carving those out explicitly and even footnoting the CEA §1a(19) definition to show what’s out of scope.
Equally important is the futures-market seasoning test many view as the “on-ramp” for new spot products. Cboe’s proposal requires that, among other pathways, the underlying asset underlie a futures contract that has been made available to trade on a Designated Contract Market for at least six months and that the exchange has a surveillance-sharing agreement with that DCM. In practice, the “made available to trade” phrasing anchors the six-month clock to the contract’s listing/availability date and aligns with the surveillance logic the SEC has leaned on since the 2024 spot-BTC and spot-ETH approvals.
ETF Applications In The Queue
Against that backdrop, the XRP and Dogecoin dockets are already deep into the 19b-4 pipeline—so standardized listing rules arriving in late September or early October would collide almost perfectly with several final statutory deadlines:
For XRP, several separate spot filings illustrate the cadence. On Nasdaq, the CoinShares XRP ETF (SR-NASDAQ-2025-012) was published in the Federal Register on February 25, 2025, with proceedings instituted on May 29 and the period for action extended again on August 21; under Exchange Act timing, the 240-day outside date from publication lands on October 23, 2025.
On NYSE Arca, Grayscale XRP Trust (SR-NYSEArca-2025-08) hit the Register February 20, 2025; the SEC noted the 180th day as August 19—placing the 240-day outside date on October 18, 2025. Cboe BZX’s Canary XRP Trust entered the queue with publication on February 25, 2025, likewise pointing to an October 23, 2025 outside date. These are classic 19b-4 listing files; S-1 registrations must still go effective before any shares trade.
For Dogecoin, multiple spot proposals provide similar waypoints. The Bitwise Dogecoin ETF on NYSE Arca was issued March 17, 2025, setting a 240-day outside date of November 12, 2025. On Nasdaq, the 21Shares Dogecoin ETF notice was published May 19, 2025, implying an outside date of January 14, 2026. Grayscale’s Dogecoin Trust filed an S-1 on August 15, 2025, disclosing that NYSE Arca lodged its companion 19b-4 on January 31, 2025—evidence issuers have been preparing both legs of the approval stool.
The upshot: if the SEC blesses the generic listing standards on the schedule the industry now expects, the calendar neatly lines up with XRP’s October 18–23 outside dates—and Dogecoin’s November 12 follow-on—creating exactly the “floodgates” window Geraci described.
At press time, XRP traded at $2.81.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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