Trump’s Truth Social Files for Bitcoin ETF

President Trump has put the spotlight on spot bitcoin ETFs.

Trump Media and Technology Group officially filed for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of its Truth Social Bitcoin ETF, named after Trump’s social media platform, that will directly track the price of bitcoin and trade on the NYSE Arca. It will be managed by Truth.fi, a newly created fintech platform “designed to offer investment products aligned with ‘America First’ economic priorities,” per the filing.

The move is a major step toward Trump’s embrace of the cryptocurrency and financial services industries, opening up the potential for a major alternative to bitcoin ETFs from traditional asset managers — one that has a direct link to the Trump administration. Experts have suggested that the filing could also invite legal challenges because its ties to Trump Media could create conflicts of interest.

You Can’t Handle the Truth

The ETF will be sponsored by Yorkville America Digital, a subsidiary of a Florida investment firm, Yorkville America, that has worked with Trump Media on “several commercial agreements,” according to the filing:

• Yorkville will advise Trump Media on its creation of similar bitcoin-oriented financial instruments for Truth.fi.
• Yorkville, through an agreement with one of its affiliates, bought $2.5 billion in shares of Trump Media’s stock.
• Another Yorkville affiliate, Yorkville Securities, will act as a custodian for Trump’s bitcoin reserve, a $2.4 billion endeavor in which proceeds from Trump Media’s stock will serve as a “bitcoin treasury” for the US government.

The overlapping agreements are acknowledged in the filing as being potentially harmful to investors. “These existing relationships with [Trump Media] may be viewed by potential investors as affecting the sponsor’s decisions … for example by causing the sponsor to refrain from taking actions that are in the best interests of the trust but that could harm [Trump Media],” per the filing.

The Future is Coin: Other cryptocurrency ETFs have also launched or made moves to launch in recent months, taking advantage of an increasingly deregulated industry. BlackRock launched iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) in January, and Trump debuted his own memecoin, World Liberty Financial, in September 2024, with a focus on stablecoin. Franklin Templeton’s proposed XRP spot ETF currently awaits SEC approval and would closely follow XRP Ledger’s blockchain technology.