Wall Street’s Wildest: Would You Buy a 2x Melania ETF? You Won’t Believe Who Laughed

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One finds oneself in Dubai, darling, surrounded not by sand dunes and camels but by the scent of ambition and the shimmer of crypto bros. 🎩💸 At Token2049, the scene was spiced by Bloomberg’s ETF maestro Eric Balchunas, a man as quick with a zinger as he is with an expense report. With a wink and a devil-may-care flick of the microphone, he lobbed the most deliciously outlandish question of the session:

“A Trump ETF, a Trump coin ETF, and a 2x Melania. Who here will buy that?”

The laughter from the crowd? Uproarious. The skepticism? Audible. Balchunas, channeling the mischief of a well-heeled gossip columnist, couldn’t help but needle further: “You say the Trump coin ETF is not for investors, but your boss has basically launched the coin for investors? My dear, is this performance art?”

🔥🇦🇪 Oh, the spectacle! At TOKEN2049, Eric teases: “Trump, Melania ETFs? Who here will buy that?”

Witty, wild, and just a little too close to being possible—are meme-lebrities the new gold standard?

#Token2049Dubai

— The Crypto Times (@CryptoTimes_io) April 30, 2025

As the ripples of giggles subsided, the ever-dignified Jan van Eck—VanEck’s answer to Jeeves—brought the room back from fantasy: “The SEC may approve them, but it’s not as if they’ll be raining from the heavens,” he intoned, subtly clutching his pearls.

In his best “now-see-here” manner, Van Eck revealed neither his shop nor Balchunas’s had dipped their toes into the dangerous waters of leveraged or inverse ETFs. The reason: poor outcomes. Which—let’s face it—sounds like a party where only the hangover RSVP’s.

Sensing the moment for melodrama, he added a touch of gravitas: “It’s not the government’s role to play fairy godmother, saying yay or nay. Broker dealers, on the other hand, do occasionally slap one’s wrist, preferably before amateur hour begins.”

Balchunas—never one to pass up a slippery slope—pressed: “If a Trump ETF hits the charts, do we then get futures on it? Options, perhaps? Inverse triple-leveraged Melania dog coins?” One suspects visions of regulatory headaches danced in his head.

Enter Giovanni Vicioso, CME’s Global Head of Cryptocurrency—bringing down the curtain with the blunt panache of a seasoned bouncer.

“When you speak of meme coins, there’s no ‘there’ there. CME won’t be peddling those wares.”

The whole affair laid bare the dizzying love triangle of regulation, politics, and meme-flation. Panelists laughed, yes, but made it clear: they’d rather dine with one’s ex-wife than oversee a Trump ETF.

Despite the intrigue, and a crowd clamoring for something to tweet about, one must admit—nobody on that stage plans to pop champagne for a Melania ETF debut. Not now, not ever (unless “ever” comes with its own ticker symbol).

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2025-04-30 12:24