Nasdaq files for 21Shares Sui ETF, kicking off SEC review

Nasdaq has filed for crypto asset manager 21Shares to list a spot Sui exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US, initiating the Securities and Exchange Commission’s review process.

The stock market’s May 23 19b-4 filing, which asks the SEC to list the 21Shares SUI ETF, follows 21Shares’ April 30 submission of its S-1 registration statement to the SEC, which asked the regulator to approve trading of the proposed fund.

Both regulatory filings are needed for the Sui (SUI) tracking fund to go live, with the 19b-4 filing kicking off the SEC’s review process. The agency must decide whether to accept, reject or delay the application within 45 days and it can delay its decision multiple times, for a maximum review period of 240 days.

The SEC must decide on 21Shares’ application by Jan. 18, 2026, at the latest.

21Shares proposed BitGo and Coinbase Custody as the custodians to hold SUI on behalf of the trust; however, the filing did not include details on a management fee or ticker.

Canary Capital is the only other asset manager that has submitted 19b-4 and S-1 filings to list a spot Sui ETF, filing the forms on April 8.

21Shares said in its 19b-4 filing that the SUI token powers the Sui network and serves four main purposes: it can be staked to earn rewards, used to pay gas fees, function as a liquid asset for Sui applications and serve as a governance token.

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The Sui ecosystem is largely focused on decentralized applications and has been dubbed a potential Solana killer.

SUI is the 13th-largest cryptocurrency, but its $12.3 billion market cap remains a fraction of Solana’s (SOL) $92 billion market cap, according to CoinGecko.

21Shares already lists a Sui exchange-traded product in Europe, on the Euronext Paris and Euronext Amsterdam stock exchanges.

Those listings have contributed to SUI-based exchange-traded products having $317.2 million in assets under management (AUM), according to a May 26 report from CoinShares.

Flows into SUI ETPs increased by $2.9 million between May 16 and May 24, and only trails Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana and XRP (XRP) in terms of net assets.

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