Two fund sponsors have asked the SEC to register nine exchange-traded funds that would buy credit-default-swap protection on AI-exposed companies, according to their filings. Tuttle Capital filed for five on 3 November and Defiance, through Tidal Trust V, filed for four on 5 November. Bloomberg reported the plans on 10 November as a way for retail investors to “bet on fear about potential credit defaults at artificial intelligence companies”.
CoreWeave and Oracle each get a single-company fund in both filings, so 4 of the 9 proposed funds target one of those two names, by our arithmetic. Neither filing has a fee filled in yet, and both ask to become effective 75 days after filing, which points to 17 and 19 January 2027 at the earliest, by our arithmetic.
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An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on financial conditions. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss these funds.
The key insight: Tuttle Capital and Defiance have filed with the SEC for nine ETFs that would buy credit-default-swap protection on AI-exposed companies, according to their 3 and 5 November filings. CoreWeave and Oracle each get a single-company fund in both filings, so 4 of the 9 target one of those two names, by our arithmetic.
The Tuttle Capital filing lists the Tuttle Capital CRWV, ORCL, Hyperscaler, Magnificent 7 and Semiconductor Credit Default Swap ETFs. Its Hyperscaler fund names Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle and Space Exploration Technologies as reference companies, and its Semiconductor fund names AMD, Broadcom, Intel and Nvidia.
The Defiance filing adds four series to Tidal Trust V: the Defiance AI Infrastructure, CRWV, META and ORCL Credit Hedge ETFs. Its AI Infrastructure fund defines a target company as one that derives at least 50% of revenue, capital spending or research spending from “AI Infrastructure Activities”, a list that includes “emerging AI-native cloud providers” and data center expansion.
Five-year CDS spreads on 6 Nov 2026 for names the proposed ETFs reference, as CNBC reported from Deutsche Bank data: CoreWeave about 1,155bp, Oracle about 298bp, Nvidia about 139bp. CoreWeave and Oracle each get a single-name fund in both the Tuttle Capital (3 Nov) and Defiance (5 Nov) SEC filings; Nvidia is named in two Tuttle basket funds. CDS levels are market quotes, not fund holdings.
How the Funds Would Work
Each fund buys protection as the CDS buyer and is designed to gain when the market sees the reference company as more likely to default, according to the filings. The Tuttle CoreWeave fund says it is “designed to gain in value when the market perceives CoreWeaveโs creditworthiness to be deteriorating”. The Tuttle Oracle fund and the Defiance AI Infrastructure fund say they do not own the reference companies’ debt or equity.
Both filings describe leveraged exposure capped by a value-at-risk test: each business day, a fund’s VaR may not exceed 200% of the VaR of a reference portfolio, and neither rebalances to a fixed leverage ratio each day, per the filings. Both prospectuses say the information is not complete and that the funds may not sell shares until the registration statement is effective.
Where CDS Prices Already Sit
Our 8 November piece reported CoreWeave’s five-year CDS at around 1,155 basis points on 6 November, against roughly 139 for Nvidia and roughly 298 for Oracle, the levels CNBC reported from Deutsche Bank data. That is about 8.3 times Nvidia’s level, by our arithmetic. Our coverage of CoreWeave’s bond yields and its third-quarter cash burn covers the debt these swaps reference.
As we read the filings, both sponsors chose single-company funds on the same two names, CoreWeave and Oracle, alongside their basket funds.
The Structural Read
As we read the filings, both sponsors put single-company funds on the same two names alongside their basket funds. Fees, tickers and launch dates are not in the filings yet.
Tuttle Capital CRWV Credit Default Swap ETF, Form 485APOS, 3 Nov 2026
“the Fund is designed to gain in value when the market perceives CoreWeaveโs creditworthiness to be deteriorating”
Three Implications
FOR COREWEAVE Its five-year CDS was around 1,155 basis points on 6 November, about 8.3 times Nvidia’s roughly 139, by our arithmetic from levels CNBC reported.
FOR THE SPONSORS Both filings elect effectiveness 75 days after filing, which points to 17 and 19 January 2027 at the earliest, by our arithmetic.
FOR RISK LIMITS The Tuttle Oracle and Defiance AI Infrastructure funds’ value at risk may not exceed 200% of a reference portfolio’s on any business day, the filings say.
The framework says: “the capex race is no longer a corporate spending cycle. It is a sovereign-scale financing problem dressed in tech-company clothing.”
As we read it, funds built to profit from wider credit spreads on AI infrastructure names treat that financing as a tradable risk. The framework predates the filings and does not discuss them.
What Is Not Established
Fees, tickers and launch dates are not in the filings yet, and the SEC has not declared them effective. We did not read Bloomberg’s article, which is paywalled; the firm count and framing come from Bloomberg’s post. We have not established that these are the only two such filings.
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Tuttle Capital and Defiance have filed for nine ETFs that would buy credit-default protection on AI-exposed companies, according to SEC filings of 3 and 5 November. Four of the nine target CoreWeave or Oracle alone, by our arithmetic, and the earliest automatic effective dates fall on 17 and 19 January 2027.
A note on sourcing. Fund names, strategies, fee tables and effective-date elections come from the two Form 485APOS filings on SEC EDGAR. The two-firm framing and the retail-investor angle come from Bloomberg’s post; we did not read its paywalled article. CDS levels were reported by CNBC from Deutsche Bank data. Fund counts and dates are our arithmetic. These funds are proposed and not yet effective.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
