Canary Capital, the digital asset-focused investment firm founded by former Valkyrie Funds co-founder Steven McClurg, is planning on launching an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the price of Axelar (AXL).

The firm submitted an S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday, kicking off the process to launch such a fund. The hedge fund has previously filed paperwork for several other ETFs. Some of these have already been acknowledged by the Commission and await approval.

“Axelar has one of the best dev teams in blockchain. Most viable protocols work with them on chain interoperability,” said Steven McClurg, Chief Executive Officer at Canary Capital. “There is no question that AXL will be a top 20 token by market capitalization as the market discovers them. This is why we took the risk.”

AXL is the native token of the Alexar Network, a cross-chain protocol that connects other blockchains, enabling decentralized, secure cross-chain transactions. Unlike many interoperability solutions that rely on a small set of validators, Axelar operates on a proof-of-stake consensus model, allowing anyone to participate in its network, Sergey Gorbunov, co-founder of Axelar, said in an interview with CoinDesk.

The protocol, which has previously been integrated by J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys platform, Microsoft’s Azure marketplace as well as Uniswap and MetaMask, also announced the appointment of former Coinbase chief legal officer and Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks to its newly formed Institutional Advisory Board.

“Brian comes with a pretty deep understanding of how do you actually make sure blockchain is adopted by traditional finance,” said Gorbunov. “He understands what pain points these asset issuers have and he believes that decentralized interoperability is very essential to not introduce all of those issues in the process.”

According to Gurbunov, stablecoins and tokenization are poised to be the next major trends for institutions in crypto, driven by regulatory developments and efficiency gains. A stablecoin bill expected in the coming months could open the door for more financial institutions to issue and integrate stablecoins, with firms like PayPal, BlackRock, and Robinhood already exploring their use for settlement to reduce costs.

AXL currently trades at $0.36 and stands at a market cap of $340 million, according to CoinDesk data. The token reached an all-time high in March 2024 at $2.69 but has since dropped.

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The Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has set itself a deadline for a decision on whether it will allow an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the price of XRP (XRP).

The SEC acknowledged a 19b-4 filing by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and asset manager Grayscale, which is the first time it has responded to a filing regarding the crypto asset. This means that the Commission now has up to 240 days to make a decision on the filing.

While the regulator has previously acknowledged several other applications for crypto-focused ETFs, including for Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE), this latest acknowledgement is is significant given that the SEC’s ongoing lawsuit against Ripple, the issuer of XRP.

The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020 for allegedly violating U.S. securities laws by selling XRP as an unregistered security to raise funds. Ripple won the court case partially in August 2023 and XRP was deemed a non-security when sold on secondary markets by a federal judge.

The SEC filed an appeal in the case on Jan. 15 — five days before Donald Trump assumed office as U.S. President — arguing that Ripple’s approach to selling XRP met the tenets of the Howey Test, a Supreme Court precedent used as a common standard for identifying securities.

“They could have easily rejected this filing,” said Nate Geraci, President of the ETF Store in a post on X. “Enormous message [in my opinion.]”

Last week, Bloomberg ETF analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas predicted a 65% chance for an XRP ETF to be approved by the end of 2025. The two analysts gave the highest chances to a LTC ETF (90%), followed by DOGE (75%) and SOL (65%).

All of the current outstanding ETF applications for those assets will receive a decision in October.

The institutionalization of crypto markets means that bitcoin (BTC) is no longer considered a niche investment, and increased adoption is forcing hesitant investors to reconsider the asset class, WisdomTree said in a report Monday, which looked at crypto trends for 2025.

The investment manager noted that portfolios with allocations to bitcoin are consistently outperforming those that don’t hold the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

Asset managers need to integrate the digital asset into multi-asset portfolios or “risk falling behind in a rapidly evolving financial landscape,” wrote analyst Dovile Silenskyte, adding that bitcoin adoption is expected to grow this year as more clients demand exposure to the asset class.

The launch of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. helped take crypto more mainstream in 2024. This momentum is expected to continue this year as the regulatory environment becomes more friendly in the U.S. under President Trump, and as more countries approve exchange-traded products (ETPs) for altcoins such as solana‘s SOL and XRP, WisdomTree said.

“This next wave of altcoin ETPs will expand the diversity of crypto investment opportunities and further integrate cryptocurrencies into the global financial system,” Silenskyte wrote.

The Ethereum blockchain’s role as the “backbone of decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Web3 is unmatched,” the report said, but its scalability issues are still a problem.

Still, recent upgrades including Dencun are expected to drive layer-2 adoption on the blockchain, the report noted.

Stablecoins are “becoming indispensable to the global financial system,” and networks such as Solana are ideal for stablecoin payments and remittances, WisdomTree said.

Tokenization, the process of putting the ownership of real world assets on the blockchain, will expand dramatically in 2025, and will transform industries from private equity to venture capital, the report added.

Read more: Stablecoin Deals and China, Europe to Follow U.S. With Bitcoin Reserve: Wintermute Predictions