T. Rowe Price's $1.9T Active Crypto ETF Says "Wagmi" to Memecoins 🐶

T. Rowe Price, the $1.9 trillion asset manager, said its decision to include established memecoins in the T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF (TKNZ) reflects a research-driven approach to active management rather than a tilt toward internet hype. Blue Macellari, head of digital assets and lead portfolio manager for the fund, said excluding memecoins on principle would be inconsistent with the discipline the firm applies across all eligible tokens. "We wanted true active management," Macellari said. "I'm not going to stand on principle and say, 'I'm going to be an intellectual snob,' and if a memecoin performs, my investors aren't going to participate."

TKNZ launched in July as the industry's first actively managed multi-token spot crypto exchange-traded fund, giving portfolio managers discretion to rotate holdings based on research, market conditions and risk management. The fund carries a 0.75% management fee under a temporary waiver running through May 2027.

Macellari pushed back on the view that memecoins are purely speculative, arguing that established tokens in the category provide a real-world stress test for blockchain networks and insight into scalability and reliability. "These are established memecoins," she said. "These are tokens that have been around for years and are among the largest crypto assets by market capitalization."

TKNZ currently holds dogecoin (DOGE) as its only memecoin exposure, with the position representing 1.26% of the fund as part of an ongoing rotation that also includes bitcoin ($BTC, $65,019.42) and ether (ETH, $1,920.65). T. Rowe Price expects the crypto ETF market to evolve beyond single-asset bitcoin products into actively managed, sector-specific and multi-token vehicles as institutional adoption grows.