Crypto ETF Approval in the US: Why the SEC Is Rewriting Its Rules for Staking and Altcoin Funds

On June 30, 2026 the US Securities and Exchange Commission opened a proceeding that will help decide what the next generation of crypto funds looks like. The agency is putting 27 questions on the table about the conditions under which exchange-traded funds holding unusual assets should reach the market in future. Crypto does not sit at the margin of that list; it stands at the front of it. Anyone can file a comment until August 31, 2026, from Europe as much as from the United States.

For you as an investor this is more than an American administrative matter. Flows into US crypto funds have set the tempo for the bitcoin price for two years now, and the products approved there help determine what issuers launch shortly afterwards as ETPs in Europe. That applies in particular to the two designs currently drawing the most attention: funds that earn staking rewards and funds tracking smaller altcoins.

What the SEC Actually Opened With Release 33-11426

The document carries the number 33-11426 and runs under file number S7-2026-24. It is a Request for Comment and therefore expressly not yet a rule proposal: a formal invitation to comment with which the agency opens a procedural file before it decides whether and what to change at all. The version published on July 2, 2026 in the official gazette of the United States, the Federal Register (volume 91, number 126, pages 40647 to 40651), sets out 27 numbered questions in three blocks. The SEC procedural page for file number S7-2026-24 carries the matter with all its accompanying references.