U.S. President Donald Trump’s media company, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), is making moves to launch exchange-traded funds (ETFs), including one tracking the price of bitcoin (BTC), according to an announcement on Thursday.
The ETFs — three of them in total so far, alongside other planned products — would be launched under Trump’s Truth.Fi brand. The bitcoin-focused fund, for example, would go under the name Truth.Fi Bitcoin Plus ETF. The other two funds are the Truth.Fi Made in America ETF and a Truth.Fi Energy Independence ETF.
The company plans to launch the products this year, according to the announcement, but didn’t give further details on the timeline. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will be tasked with reviewing and approving these product once filed. Trump nominated Paul Atkins to be the new chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after the departure of Gary Gensler, who left the agency when Trump was inaugurated in January.
“We aim to give investors a means to invest in American energy, manufacturing, and other firms that provide a competitive alternative to the woke funds and debanking problems that you find throughout the market,” TMTG CEO and Chairman Devin Nunes said in a statement. “We’re exploring a range of ways to differentiate our products, including strategies related to bitcoin.”
The funds would be custodied by Charles Schwab with New Jersey-based Yorkville Advisors acting as investment adviser.
Several spot bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024 and instantly attracted billions of dollars of capital from a variety of retail and institutional investors. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) accumulated more than $52.3 billion worth of assets in its first year (a combination of large inflows and the sharp rise in the price of bitcoin), which made it the most successful ETF launch in the history of U.S. ETFs.
According to Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, TMTG’s bitcoin ETF won’t likely see the same traction, but still has significance.
“Despite Trump’s brand, these will likely be microscopic in asset gathering compared to IBIT, FBTC et al.,” Balchunas wrote in a post on X. “That said, just the fact [that] they [are] launching it adds to the mainstreamification narrative, which matters.”