Canary Capital Drops a PEPE ETF Filing Because One Meme Coin ETF With $7M Inflows Wasn't Enough

Canary Capital Group has filed an S-1 registration statement with the SEC to launch the Canary PEPE ETF, marking another attempt to bring a frog-themed meme coin to the regulated ETF space. Because apparently, one meme coin ETF wasn't enough to satisfy humanity's collective urge to institutionalize jokes.

The proposed fund would hold PEPE directly, following the structure of existing spot crypto ETFs. Share creation and redemption would occur in baskets of 10,000 units. The filing leaves the listing exchange, pricing benchmark, and digital asset custodian unnamed. Classic "we'll figure it out later" energy from the filing that basically says "trust us, we know how to hold a token."

"The Trust's investment objective is to seek to provide investment exposure to the price of PEPE Coin held by the Trust, less the expenses of the Trust's operations and other liabilities," the filing states. In other words: we're going to buy PEPE, charge you fees, and whatever's left is the price. Groundbreaking stuff.

A small portion of the Trust's assets, capped at 5%, would initially be held in ETH to cover Ethereum transaction fees. Canary Capital emphasized the ETF will not hold ETH for investment purposes. Just enough ETH to pay for the gas to move your PEPE around. The ultimate utility play.

The filing comes amid a crowded meme coin ETF race. Canary previously submitted an S-1 for a Mog Coin ETF in November 2025 and has filed for funds tracking Pudgy Penguins, Axelar, and other tokens. At this point, Canary Capital is basically trying to ETF every token that ever made someone rich or rekt on a random Tuesday.

Dogecoin remains the only meme coin with live ETFs in the US. Three spot funds from Grayscale, 21Shares, and Bitwise trade on the NYSE and Nasdaq. However, demand has been underwhelming. The meme coin ETF dream is looking more like a meme itself, with Doge being the only one that actually got listed and still barely moving the needle.

Data from SoSoValue shows cumulative net inflows across all three totaled just $7.64 million as of April 8, with combined daily volume barely exceeding $209,000. That's less than what some random degen blows on a single trade during a hype cycle. The institutional investors are apparently not as bullish on dog-themed financial products as the filing roomies hoped.

The PEPE news had minimal impact on the token's price. PEPE traded near $0.0000035 at press time, down more than 4.8% over 24 hours as broader geopolitical uncertainty continued to pressure risk assets. The market responded with a collective shrug, which is honestly the most meme coin response possible.