Cboe BZX Exchange has asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to approve six leveraged exchange-traded funds, including what would be the first U.S.-listed 3x Bitcoin and 3x Ether funds.

The exchange filed the proposal on August 10, and the SEC published its notice on August 14. The proposed crypto funds would seek three times the daily performance of Bitcoin and Ether through futures rather than holding the underlying assets directly. The ETFs would reset their exposure daily, meaning the 3x target applies to daily performance rather than longer-term returns.

Cboe Seeks Approval for Leveraged Crypto Funds

According to the SEC filing, Volatility Shares LLC would sponsor the six funds through the VS Trust. The lineup includes 3x Bitcoin, Ether, Gold, Silver, Crude Oil and Natural Gas ETFs.

The Bitcoin fund would primarily use CME Bitcoin futures, while the Ether fund would primarily use CME Ether futures. Neither fund would directly hold Bitcoin or Ether under the proposed structure. Each fund would rely on futures, with cash and cash equivalents serving as collateral. Separate SEC approval is required because leveraged products fall outside Cboe's generic listing standards.

Triple-leveraged ETFs are an established structure in U.S. equity markets, where ProShares and Direxion have listed 3x S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 funds for more than a decade. U.S.-listed crypto ETFs currently top out at 2x daily exposure, so an approval would carry triple leverage into crypto funds domestically for the first time.

Proposed Funds Would Reset Exposure Daily

The funds would operate as commodity pools rather than as traditional investment companies under the 1940 Act. Their sponsor would face oversight from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the National Futures Association.

Because the products would reset exposure daily, the 3x target applies to a single trading day, not to cumulative returns over longer periods. Because the daily reset compounds, a fund's multi-day return can diverge from three times the underlying asset's move over the same stretch, which is why leveraged ETFs are generally positioned as short-term trading vehicles rather than buy-and-hold holdings. Investors would create and redeem shares through cash transactions involving Creation Units, with each unit generally containing 10,000 shares. The funds would calculate net asset value daily and publish indicative values every 15 seconds. In the filing, Cboe cited regulated futures markets and existing surveillance arrangements.

SEC Review Begins After August Filing

The SEC's August 14 notice starts the review process but does not approve the proposed ETFs. The commission will seek public comments after publication in the Federal Register, and the SEC generally has 45 days to act from that point, though the review can extend to 90 days. Cboe said it had not received any comments before submitting the proposal.

The filing arrives as the U.S. crypto ETF market has widened beyond the futures-based funds that launched in October 2021, with spot Bitcoin ETFs approved in January 2024 and spot Ether ETFs following later that year. Volatility Shares already offers 2x Bitcoin and Ether strategy ETFs in the United States, and its 2x Bitcoin Strategy ETF became the first leveraged Bitcoin ETF to list in the country when it launched in June 2023. LeverageShares launched 3x and negative 3x Bitcoin and Ether ETFs in Europe last year, a leverage level not yet available to U.S. investors.