T. Rowe Price, the Baltimore-based asset manager overseeing $1.8 trillion, filed an amended S-1 registration with the SEC on Monday for its Price Active Crypto ETF. The updated filing names 15 eligible digital assets, confirms Anchorage Digital Bank as custodian, and discloses that the fund could participate in staking.
The original filing landed in October 2025. Monday's amendment adds Sui (SUI) to the eligible asset list and provides expanded operational details around share creation, redemption mechanics, and portfolio turnover risk.
Fifteen Tokens, One Quantitative Model
The full roster of eligible assets reads like a cross-section of the crypto market: Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP, Cardano, Avalanche, Litecoin, Polkadot, Dogecoin, Hedera, Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink, Stellar Lumens, Shiba Inu, and the newly added Sui.
The fund will hold between 5 and 15 of those tokens at any given time, rotating positions using quantitative models that incorporate fundamentals, valuation signals, and market momentum. The benchmark is the FTSE US Listed Crypto Index, and the stated goal is to beat it.
That is a different animal from the spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs that launched in 2024 and early 2025. Those products track a single asset with minimal management discretion. T. Rowe Price is asking for the authority to actively trade across meme coins, layer-1s, DeFi infrastructure tokens, and legacy proof-of-work chains in the same vehicle. The inclusion of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu in the same fund as Bitcoin and Solana is the detail that will get quoted on every trading desk.
Anchorage Digital Gets the Custody Mandate
The amended filing confirms Anchorage Digital Bank N.A. as the crypto asset custodian. Anchorage holds a federal bank charter from the OCC, making it one of the few crypto custodians operating under a national banking framework rather than a state trust license.
Custody is where institutional crypto products live or die. BlackRock chose Coinbase for its iShares Bitcoin Trust. Fidelity built its own custody infrastructure. T. Rowe Price went with the only crypto-native firm holding a federal bank charter, which signals a preference for regulatory coverage over brand recognition.
The filing also notes that subscriptions and redemptions will initially be cash-based, with the possibility of evolving to in-kind transactions. In-kind creation is the mechanism that makes traditional ETFs tax-efficient, and its absence in early crypto ETFs has been a sticking point for institutional allocators managing taxable accounts.
Staking Is on the Table
Buried in the risk disclosures is a line that could matter more than the asset list: the fund "could participate in staking" depending on risk considerations, tax treatment, and regulatory guidance.
If the SEC approves and T. Rowe Price activates staking, the fund would generate yield on proof-of-stake assets like Solana, Cardano, Polkadot, and Ether. BlackRock just launched ETHB, the first staked Ethereum ETF from a major asset manager, on Nasdaq earlier this month. T. Rowe Price's filing suggests staking could apply across multiple assets in a single fund, not just Ether.
The tax treatment of staking rewards inside an ETF wrapper is still unsettled. The IRS treats staking income as ordinary income at the time of receipt, but how that interacts with fund-level accounting and NAV calculations is an open question that the SEC and fund sponsors are working through in real time.
Where This Sits in the ETF Race
The crypto ETF landscape has evolved rapidly since BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF crossed $50 billion in AUM. The second wave brought single-asset products for Ether and Solana. T. Rowe Price is betting the third wave will be multi-asset and actively managed.
The competitive angle is straightforward. Passive crypto index funds charge low fees but force investors into fixed allocations. An active fund can overweight Solana during a DeFi cycle, trim Dogecoin after a meme spike, or rotate into XRP ahead of a regulatory catalyst. Whether T. Rowe Price's quantitative models can actually deliver alpha in crypto markets, where information asymmetry is high and volatility is structural, is the $1.8 trillion question.
The market seems receptive to the broader crypto thesis right now. As of March 17, 2026, BTC trades at $75,212 (+3.6% over 24 hours), ETH at $2,354 (+7.9%), and XRP at $1.60 (+10.5%). The Fear and Greed index sits at 47, neutral territory after weeks of selling pressure. All five major assets in the market snapshot posted green over the past week, with ETH and XRP leading at +15%.
What the SEC Has to Decide
The SEC's decision window for the original filing expired in late February 2026. The amended S-1 resets part of that clock. The commission will need to evaluate whether an actively managed fund holding assets as different as Bitcoin and Shiba Inu can meet the disclosure and investor protection standards it expects from ETF sponsors.
The precedent is mixed. The SEC approved spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs but has been slower on multi-asset products. An actively managed fund adds another layer: the SEC has to assess not just the underlying assets but the discretionary trading strategy, the custodial arrangements for 15 different tokens, and the liquidity conditions across smaller-cap assets like Hedera and Stellar.
If approved, the Price Active Crypto ETF would be the first actively managed multi-asset crypto fund from a top-10 US asset manager.
Overview
T. Rowe Price amended its SEC registration for the Price Active Crypto ETF, an actively managed fund covering 15 digital assets from Bitcoin to Shiba Inu. Anchorage Digital Bank holds custody. The fund uses quantitative models to rotate between 5 and 15 positions, benchmarked against the FTSE US Listed Crypto Index. The filing also opens the door to staking. No approval date has been set, but the amended S-1 moves the product closer to a final SEC decision.
