The SEC Cleared XRP, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana for Nasdaq Texas Commodity Trusts. What It Does and Does Not Do.

The SEC approved a rule change on September 3 that names Bitcoin(CRYPTO:BTC), Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH), Solana (CRYPTO:SOL) and XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) inside a new Nasdaq Texas listing standard, and social media treated it as a formal declaration that all four are commodities under federal law. 

The order simply changes the listing rules for a single exchange, and the four coins appear only as an example inside a worked calculation showing how a new 15% holdings buffer works. The change still matters for how funds get built going forward, so here is what the order actually does, and what it does not.

What Did the SEC Actually Approve for XRP, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana?

The SEC’s order, numbered 34-106268 and dated September 3, gives accelerated approval to a proposal Nasdaq Texas filed on August 20. The proposal amends Rule 5711(d), the exchange’s generic listing standards for Commodity-Based Trust Shares, the category that covers crypto trust products such as spot ETFs. 

The order does not create a new law or declare XRP, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana commodities under federal statute. It changes the requirements a fund must meet to list a commodity-based trust on one specific exchange.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and XRP appear in the order as part of a worked example, but the subject of ruling was not on their legal status. The SEC described a hypothetical trust holding $95 million in market value of the four coins, all of which it said presently qualify as eligible commodities under the exchange’s existing test. 

That test requires an asset to underlie a futures contract that has traded on an ISG market, a group of exchanges that share trading data to police manipulation, for at least six months, and to have an ETF that provides at least 40% economic exposure to it. Each coin already met that bar before this order, which is why the SEC could use them as an example rather than a novel finding.

The Nasdaq Texas change is also not the first of its kind. The SEC approved materially identical rule changes for Nasdaq, NYSE Arca and Cboe in July, so this order extends a framework those three exchanges already operate under rather than establishing a new one. 

A separate and earlier action, a joint interpretation from the SEC and the CFTC in March, named Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and XRP as crypto commodities alongside Cardano, Avalanche, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and Chainlink. That March interpretation and this September listing-rule order are two different documents from two different processes, even though both use the same language about the four coins.

How Could the New Nasdaq Texas Rules Change Crypto ETFs?

The rule change makes two practical adjustments to how a listed crypto trust can be built and run.

A 15% Buffer for Assets That Don’t Fully Qualify

Before this change, a commodity-based trust listed on Nasdaq Texas needed nearly all of its holdings to meet the exchange’s eligible-commodity test, the six-month futures and 40% ETF exposure standard described above. The amended rule lets a trust hold up to 15% of its net asset value, or NAV, the total market value of everything the fund owns, in assets that do not meet that test. 

A fund manager could use that 15% to add a smaller token without a mature futures market, or to hold cash and other instruments needed to manage the fund day to day. The SEC noted that this 15% threshold matches what it already approved for other diversified crypto funds, such as Grayscale’s Digital Large Cap Fund.

Removing the Passive-Management Requirement

The previous version of Rule 5711(d) required listed commodity trusts to track a fixed, publicly disclosed formula, the same passive structure that governs most existing spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. The amended rule permits actively managed strategies instead. A fund manager can now adjust a trust’s holdings and weightings based on ongoing judgment rather than a fixed formula set in advance, the same flexibility that mutual fund managers already have outside the crypto space. 

This change combined with the 15% buffer, gives asset managers room to build multi-asset crypto trusts that shift their mix of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP and smaller assets over time, instead of locking in a static formula at launch.

Does the SEC Approval Change the Outlook for XRP, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana?

The approval changes what asset managers can build, but does not change what XRP, Ethereum and Solana legally are. Funds now have a clearer path to list actively managed, multi-asset crypto trusts on Nasdaq Texas that combine Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP and a limited share of other assets, extending an approach the SEC already permits on Nasdaq, NYSE Arca and Cboe. 

This rule change could bring more diversified crypto products to market and give institutions more ways to gain exposure without holding several separate single-asset funds.

The CLARITY Act, the bill that would settle that question with a permanent federal law, is still pending in the Senate. While this order changes a listing rule at one exchange, it is not a substitute for that bill, and it does not lock in a legal classification the SEC could not later revisit.

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