Legacy asset manager T. Rowe Price files for its first crypto ETF

T. Rowe Price, a legacy asset management company with $1.77 trillion in assets under management, submitted an S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch its first crypto exchange-traded fund.

The T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF is described as an actively-managed product that seeks to outperform the FTSE Crypto US Listed Index, which tracks the performance of the top 10 largest U.S.-listed crypto assets by market capitalization, over a period of a year or longer.

The Wednesday filing shows that the fund will invest in "eligible" cryptocurrencies, which include bitcoin, ether, Solana, XRP, Cardano, Avalanche, Litecoin, Polkadot, Dogecoin, HBAR, Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink, Lumen and Shiba Inu. 

Having long focused on mutual funds, T. Rowe Price's venture into crypto ETFs came years after other issuers such as BlackRock and Fidelity had rushed to launch such products to great success.

"Can't overstate significance of T. Rowe Price filing for an actively managed crypto ETF out of left field," NovaDius Wealth Management President Nate Geraci wrote in an X post. "A firm founded in 1937 is now building out the full infrastructure to handle crypto trading and manage a crypto ETF."

Geraci pointed out that this shows how legacy asset managers are scrambling to figure out how to integrate crypto assets into their strategies. "Hoping crypto goes away is not a good biz strategy," Geraci said.

The filing also came after the SEC recently approved new listing standards that effectively shorten the timeline for crypto ETFs to begin trading. Since then, dozens of new crypto-related products have gushed in. On Wednesday, Osprey Funds filed its S-1 statement to launch its spot Solana ETF with staking.

However, the processing of these applications is currently halted amid the U.S. government shutdown, which has lasted 23 days since beginning on Oct. 1. The shutdown leaves the SEC with limited resources and the agency is unlikely to process crypto ETF filings until the government reopens, a source previously told The Block.