What happened?
Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas said crypto ETF approvals are now essentially “100%” certain after the SEC approved generic listing standards that remove the need for individual 19b-4 exchange filings. Seven major asset managers filed updated S-1s for spot Solana ETFs and issuers were told to withdraw pending 19b-4s for several altcoin products. The new rules speed the process dramatically, cutting approval timelines from around nine months to as few as 75 days and leaving S-1 registrations as the final step.
Who does this affect?
Asset managers, exchanges and institutional product teams who’ve been waiting to launch spot altcoin ETFs are next in line to move forward quickly. Retail and institutional investors in Solana, XRP, Ethereum and other altcoins stand to get easier, regulated ETF access that could bring large-scale capital. Crypto projects that are ETF candidates, plus existing Bitcoin and Ether funds, will see flows shift as new products hit the market and staking language appears in filings.
Why does this matter?
Faster, near-certain approvals mean big, predictable inflows could hit altcoins quickly — we’ve already seen $291M into Solana and $93M into XRP while Bitcoin recently saw $719M of outflows. That shift can boost liquidity and prices for emerging tokens, change where institutional money allocates, and raise overall trading volumes as ETFs make access simpler. In short, the streamlined approval path could accelerate capital rotation from large-cap Bitcoin/Ethereum into broader crypto, reshaping market dynamics and volatility.