NYSE Arca moves to convert Grayscale's XRP trust as firms push for SEC signoff

A subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange made its move on Thursday to convert Grayscale's XRP Trust to a spot exchange-traded fund.

NYSE Arca posted a 19b-4 filing to convert that trust and said Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC would be the custodian and the administrator and the transfer agency is expected to be BNY Mellon Asset Servicing. 

"The Trust is one of the world’s largest XRP ('XRP') investment funds by assets under management as of the date of this filing," according to the filing. "The Trust has approximately $16.1 million in assets under management, and its Shares are held by American investor accounts seeking exposure to XRP without the cost and complexity of purchasing the asset directly."

A 19b-4 filing, done by exchanges on behalf of issuers, is the second part of a two-step process for proposing a spot crypto ETF to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  Once acknowledged by the SEC, the filing will be published in the Federal Register, initiating the agency's approval process.

Several firms are vying for a wide array of crypto ETFs, from ones tied to Dogecoin and President Donald Trump's memecoin to others based on XRP, Litecoin and Solana. Under a new administration, the SEC is expected to take a friendlier approach to crypto; presumably, firms are looking to see if other crypto ETFs could garner approval. 

The SEC previously approved the listing of Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 and, later that year, Ethereum ETFs.