VanEck, 21Shares, and Canary Capital requested on June 5 that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reinstate the queue-based review system that awards exchange-traded product approvals in the order issuers filed. 

In a joint letter to Chair Paul Atkins, the firms said concurrent approvals strip early filers of the advantage that traditionally offsets higher legal and compliance costs.

In the letter, VanEck chief executive Jan van Eck, Canary’s Steve McClurg, and 21Shares president Duncan Moir asked the SEC to apply the filing-date principle to pending products, including any future Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) submissions.

The letter also calls on the regulator to “nurture a competitive financial marketplace” by restoring predictable timelines.

Stalled first-mover advantage

The letter argued that departures from the queue began in October 2021, when the ProShares Bitcoin Futures Fund received a three-day head start and secured more than 90% of the market share. 

Early filers for spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs later saw their applications cleared on Jan. 10, 2024, the same day larger asset managers that filed months or years later received green lights. 

The firms contend that such timing favors issuers with deeper distribution networks, encourages copycat filings, and concentrates assets under bigger brands.

The authors said the pattern harms market integrity by weakening incentives for original research and discouraging smaller sponsors from taking early risks. 

They also noted that honoring filing dates would not add material strain on SEC staff because registration statements already arrive in sequence and can retain their original time gaps through the review cycle.

Calls echo prior public remarks

VanEck digital assets research chief Matt Sigel has repeated the queue argument since 2024. On May 23, 2024, Sigel warned that deviations undercut the Administrative Procedure Act’s transparency standard and force early filers to shoulder prolonged update expenses.

He added that refusing to follow this standard “creates an uneven playing field for issuers who filed earlier and had to wait longer.”

On January 22, Sigel urged the regulator’s new leadership to “respect the line” after the agency formed its Crypto Task Force. 

Canary Capital chief executive Steve McClurg previewed the coordinated push during a late-May panel at the Litecoin Summit in Las Vegas, telling attendees that several issuers planned a formal appeal for a return to the queue. 

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart also commented on the letter, stating that the first-to-file approach was standard practice until the 2024 launches of the spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs.

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Cronos, the Layer 1 blockchain linked to Crypto.com, faces strong opposition over a proposal to restore 70 billion CRO tokens burned in 2021.

Early voting results on Mintscan show that 87% of participants have rejected the plan.

Cronos’ strategic reserve proposal

The proposal states reinstating the burned tokens will create a Cronos Strategic Reserve.

Crypto.com’s CEO Kris Marszalek said:

“Cronos allocates a $5 billion stockpile to make America the World Capital of Crypto.”

Cronos developers argue that this aligns with Cronos’ long-term vision and supports its growth strategy. If approved, the total supply of CRO would return to 100 billion, with the tokens held in an escrow wallet.

The reserve would be subject to strict control measures, including a new five-year lockup period. This would extend the vesting timeline to 10 years, incorporating a linear vesting mechanism that distributes monthly tokens via the Cosmos SDK on Cronos POS Chain.

Additionally, adjustments to CRO emission parameters would ensure validator rewards remain unchanged despite the increase in circulating supply.

The voting process is scheduled between March 3 and March 17, 2025, with implementation expected to follow shortly after.

Meanwhile, Cronos’ move is part of its broader strategy to position itself as the leading blockchain for AI-driven applications. The project also aims to secure a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) listing and plans to launch a stablecoin in Q3 2025, followed by an ETF application submission in Q4.

Community pushback

Despite Cronos’ strategic goals, the proposal has sparked controversy.

Mintscan data shows that more than 500 million CRO tokens have been used in the vote, with 490 million—87%—opposing the move. Only 4%, or around 25.5 million CROs, have supported it.

The backlash has been evident across social media, where Wyll Bilderberg, a CRO advocate, said:

“A burn is a burn, burnt tokens shouldn’t be brought back to life. I’m almost never against anything happening on Cronos, but today, I’m against it, big time! If this pass, it’s will just be a confirmation that Cronos is heavily centralized, and so can’t be trusted.”

However, the proposal has unexpectedly impacted CRO’s market performance. According to CryptoSlate data, the token surged 15% during the reporting period, reaching $0.08434 as of press time.

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