Steven McClurg, CEO of Canary Capital, joined Keith Black, Managing Director of RIA Channel, to discuss how the SEC’s view on which crypto tokens are not securities influences ETF launches.
McClurg spent his career in bonds and private equity, mainly at Guggenheim. In 2016, he realized that the generational bull market in bonds was over and a generational bear market in bonds might be beginning. Once McClurg predicted the bear market in bonds, he transitioned his career to cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
Before selling Valkyrie Investments, McClurg helped to launch a number of ETFs, including bitcoin spot and futures funds and a bitcoin miner’s ETF. McClurg launched Canary Capital in September 2024 with the goal of running an actively managed hedge fund and launching new spot crypto ETFs.
Members of the new Republican administration, including President Trump, Bobby Kennedy, Jr., and others, are advocating that the United States become a leader in cryptocurrencies, digital assets, and artificial intelligence. This change in regulatory tone could be the catalyst for builders of crypto projects to return to the United States and for the launch of a wider variety of crypto investment products.
Canary Capital recently filed to launch a number of spot crypto ETFs, including Solana, Litecoin, XRP, and Hedera (HBAR). McClurg is focused on those tokens that are not likely to be deemed securities by the SEC. Gary Gensler has stated that bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin are not securities. In 2023, a judge ruled on the SEC’s case against Ripple that its programmatic sales of XRP were not securities. HBAR and XRP are two of the five most popular tokens in South Korea, a country with substantial crypto adoption. McClurg believes that HBAR is not likely to be a security because the team carefully files with the CFTC each time tokens are distributed.
Resources: