The SEC is tired of playing favorites. On June 30, the agency kicked off a 60-day public comment period aimed at building a consistent regulatory framework for novel exchange-traded funds, including those tied to crypto assets and other non-traditional strategies.
The goal: stop approving ETFs one at a time and start applying uniform rules across the board.
From gatekeeper to rule-maker
SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins framed the new initiative as a necessary evolution. The ETF market has grown from roughly $4 trillion in assets in 2019 to over $12 trillion by the end of 2025. That kind of growth makes a case-by-case approval system look less like careful oversight and more like a bottleneck.
The comment period explicitly covers ETFs focused on crypto assets and alternative holdings under existing investment company laws.
