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This week brought us two new ETF launches that feel less like investment products and more like performance art commentary on the state of modern finance. Allow me to introduce you to the Tuttle Capital Meme Stock Income Blast ETF (MEMY) and the VistaShares Animal Spirits Daily 2x Strategy ETF (WILD).
Yes, those are real tickers. Yes, someone got paid to come up with them.
MEMY: When “Blast” Is Both a Product Feature and a Risk Warning
Matthew Tuttle, the man who brought us the Inverse Cramer ETF (RIP, 2024), has expanded his “Income Blast" franchise to the meme stock universe. The formula is familiar to anyone who's followed Tuttle's recent output: take an underlying asset class that already makes risk managers nervous, then add an options overlay that generates eye-popping distribution yields.
The Income Blast approach uses zero-days-to-expiration (0DTE) covered calls and put credit spreads with FLEX options. The strategy is designed to vacuum up option premiums while maintaining exposure to the underlying securities. For the Magnificent 7 version (MAGO), this approach has been generating distribution rates north of 16%. Whether MEMY can replicate this on a basket of stocks famous for their tendency to move 40% on a Roaring Kitty tweet remains to be seen.
The beauty of Tuttle's operation is the sheer audacity. This is an issuer whose current product lineup includes 2x leveraged single-stock ETFs on everything from GameStop to Trump Media, an Inverse MSTR fund for the Bitcoin-sceptical, and a European Aerospace & Defence ETF presumably for those who want to play geopolitics but find Raytheon too subtle.
MEMY takes the logical next step: if retail traders love meme stocks, and retail traders love income, why not combine them into a single vehicle that lets you collect premium while waiting for the next Reddit-fuelled gamma squeeze? It's either financial innovation or a very elaborate practical joke. Possibly both.
WILD: Keynes Meets Leverage in an ETF Wrapper
VistaShares, meanwhile, has taken the philosophical route with WILD, invoking John Maynard Keynes' concept of “animal spirits” to justify what is essentially a 2x leveraged momentum strategy with a very good marketing department.
The pitch is actually quite clever. WILD looks at the universe of stocks that have single-stock leveraged ETFs tracking them, then systematically selects the five names attracting the most assets and flows. The logic: if degenerate gamblers (sorry, “sophisticated tactical investors”) are piling into 2x Tesla or 2x NVIDIA products, that's a signal about where momentum and sentiment are running hottest. WILD gives you 2x exposure to a basket of those names, rebalanced monthly.
Current holdings read like a greatest hits album of 2024-2025 market excess: Meta, NVIDIA, Palantir, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), and Alphabet. It's the Magnificent 7 meets the YOLO portfolio, with double the leverage for when 1x exposure to Peter Thiel's surveillance empire just doesn't provide enough excitement.
The fund has been live since June 2025, and the returns tell you everything about what you're signing up for. Since inception, WILD is down nearly 4%, which sounds bad until you realize it achieved a -45% drawdown over one three-month period before presumably recovering somewhat. The expense ratio is 1.29%, which seems reasonable given that the real cost is the emotional damage.
VistaShares CEO Adam Patti describes this as “institutional-type portfolio construction” finally being made available to retail investors. One could argue that institutions have been carefully avoiding exactly this type of portfolio construction, but perhaps that's the point.
What This Says About the Market
These launches tell us a few things about where we are in the cycle. First, the demand for yield in any form remains insatiable. Investors have become so conditioned to expect income that they'll accept it from vehicles designed explicitly for short-term speculation. MEMY's existence suggests that someone, somewhere, is planning to hold meme stocks long enough to collect a dividend.
Second, the lines between “trading” and “investing” have become so blurred as to be meaningless. WILD's prospectus literally warns that the fund “is not intended to be used by investors who do not intend to actively monitor and manage their portfolios.” It then proceeds to list on a major exchange where any retail investor with a brokerage account can buy it with one click.
Third, the ETF industry has achieved a kind of late-stage capitalism meta-awareness. These products don't pretend to be anything other than what they are. MEMY is called “Meme Stock Income Blast” because that's exactly what it does. WILD is called “Animal Spirits” because it's explicitly betting on the irrational exuberance of other investors. The marketing is the disclosure.
The Bottom Line
Will either of these funds still exist in five years? History suggests the odds are not great for niche thematic products in general, let alone ones built around leverage and market sentiment. But that's somewhat beside the point.
These ETFs are designed for a specific type of investor who knows exactly what they want: exposure to the most speculative corners of the market, packaged efficiently, with either an income overlay or amplified returns. They're not pretending to be core holdings. They're the financial equivalent of ordering a dessert that's on fire: probably not nutritious, definitely memorable, and occasionally spectacular when it works.
For the rest of us, MEMY and WILD serve as useful indicators. When these products are launching and gathering assets, we know exactly what kind of market we're in. When they quietly liquidate (pour one out for the Inverse Cramer ETF), we'll know the mood has shifted.
Until then, enjoy the show.
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