Key Takeaways
- Cboe asked the SEC to approve the listing of six funds that triple daily price moves.
- The funds would primarily hold futures contracts, not bitcoin or ether directly.
- Trading requires SEC approval of the exchange rule change and effectiveness of the trust’s Form S-1.
Six Funds Tied to One Day of Price Action
Traders in the U.S. would gain two crypto ETFs—one tied to bitcoin and another to ether—each designed to deliver three times the asset’s daily performance— under a proposal Cboe BZX Exchange sent the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The agency published the notice Aug. 14, with comments due 21 days after the document appears in the Federal Register.
Volatility Shares LLC sponsors the VS Trust behind the lineup: the 3x Gold ETF, 3x Silver ETF, 3x Bitcoin ETF, 3x Ether ETF, 3x Crude Oil ETF and 3x Natural Gas ETF. Each fund targets three times its benchmark’s daily performance before fees and expenses, and each would operates as a commodity pool under the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rather than as an investment company.
The One Rule These Funds Miss
A single provision of the exchange rulebook blocks the whole lineup: BZX Rule 14.11(e)(4)(F) bars a trust from returns that correspond to a specified multiple of a benchmark. Cboe BZX therefore submitted the products under Section 19(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, the individual-approval route every commodity-based trust share needed before the SEC signed off on generic listing standards in September 2025.
The SEC granted accelerated approval on July 29 to an amendment of those standards, which now permits actively managed commodity-based trust shares, adds a definition of “digital commodity,” and allows up to 15% of a trust’s net asset value in holdings that fall outside the generic criteria. Every other provision of the amended rule still applies to the six funds.
What the Crypto Funds Actually Own
Both crypto products would pursue their targets through futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) rather than through the coins themselves. A futures contract is a standardized agreement to buy or sell an asset at a fixed price on a future date. Each fund would invests in first- and second-month contracts, plus cash and cash equivalents posted as collateral or margin.
Each crypto fund rolls roughly 20% of its expiring positions per day across a five-day window ahead of the near-month contract’s expiry. Bitcoin and ether both underlie CME futures with at least six months of history, one eligibility criterion the exchange cites.
What Must Happen Before the First Trade
The SEC must first approve Cboe’s Section 19(b) exchange rule change. Separately, the trust will file a registration statement on Form S-1, and shares can only arrive on the exchange after that S-1 becomes effective. The exchange-rule and registration reviews proceed separately.
A minimum of 100,000 shares of each fund must exist at launch, with authorized participants creating or redeeming them in cash blocks of 10,000. An intraday indicative value goes out every 15 seconds during regular trading hours. The exchange must halt trading if the daily net asset value is not disseminated to all market participants simultaneously and may halt trading if the intraday feed is interrupted.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) imposes heavier sales-practice and customer margin requirements on leveraged and inverse securities, which member firms that carry customer accounts must follow.
Where Demand for Crypto Funds Stands Now
Roughly 67 exchange-traded products that aim for three times or negative three times a benchmark are already available for trading on national securities exchanges, split between 51 funds under investment-company rules and 16 exchange-traded notes. A separate SEC request for comment on novel ETFs, dated June 30, focuses on investment-company ETFs and identifies crypto assets and heightened leverage among the novel strategies under review.
Flow data shows uneven appetite between the two assets: U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $131.13 million in net outflows on Aug. 13, while ether funds attracted $6.72 million. Given this regulatory environment and the complex nature of the products, the agency may extend its own decision window on the Cboe filing to the maximum 240 days.
