Bitwise just filed for 11 new crypto ETFs, and the market’s silence exposes a brutal new reality
Bitwise’s year-end barrage of ETF paperwork ought to have been a good spark for “alt season.” On Dec. 30, the issuer filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch 11 single-token “technique” ETFs tied to Aave, Uniswap, Zcash, NEAR, Starknet, Sui, Bittensor, Tron, and different protocols.
Each fund would allocate about 60% of its property to the underlying coin and the relaxation to associated ETPs and derivatives, with an anticipated efficient date in March 2026.
However, crypto costs and flows barely registered the information. That hole is the place a market is now exhibiting ETF submitting fatigue.
The 11 new Bitwise merchandise land on prime of a crowded 2025 pipeline. Grayscale has already filed for a Bittensor ETF, including to a roster of spot funds for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, and Chainlink.
Generic itemizing requirements, approved by the SEC in September, now let exchanges listing commodity-based belief shares with out the bespoke 19b-4 approval that was once the important bottleneck.
Between 2021 and 2024, “we filed an ETF” was a tradeable headline. Today, it’s nearer to background noise.
Math and regulation modified
Part of the shift is solely math.
Crypto merchandise had a breakout yr even earlier than Bitwise’s altcoin wave. Recently launched XRP merchandise surpassed $1 billion in web inflows, whereas Bitcoin ETFs added over $22 billion this yr.
Ethereum funds have reached over $12 billion in cumulative flows, and Solana merchandise have approached $800 million.
A single XRP fund from Canary constructed greater than $300 million in property and set a first-day quantity file amongst US ETFs, whereas different issuers trailed. S-1 quantity is high, however demand just isn’t.
Flows focus in a handful of low cost, simply distributed autos. Everyone else is preventing for scraps.
Regulation additionally makes filings much less binary than earlier than. Under the generic requirements, an alternate can listing commodity-based belief shares that meet preset standards with out ready for a bespoke SEC order.
Law companies that monitor the regime say most easy spot crypto merchandise can now listing through an expedited path, significantly the place the CFTC regulates an present futures market.
Bitwise itself is concentrating on a commonplace 75-day window from its Dec. 30 filings to a March 16, 2026, efficient date for the 11 altcoin ETFs.
For merchants, which means an S-1 is not a shock that adjustments the chance of an ETF from “perhaps sometime” to “seemingly quickly.”
For a plain-vanilla altcoin with listed futures and no apparent regulatory baggage, the base case is now that an ETF will seem sooner or later.
What strikes the needle is the particular itemizing venue, the charge, and whether or not the issuer can win shelf area with wirehouses and platforms.
Listing beats filings
The Solana ETF episode illustrates the level. Bitwise used the new guidelines and an SEC shutdown to sneak its BSOL fund onto NYSE Arca on Oct. 28, turning into the first US spot Solana ETF.
The fund raised about $420 million in its first week, forcing rivals like Grayscale, VanEck, and Fidelity to scramble with copycat merchandise and different altcoin filings, together with for XRP.
Prices and flows reacted to the itemizing, to not the earlier paperwork. The submitting date was noise, as the go-live date and first-week AUM inform traders the place actual demand sat.
Data from Bitcoin and Ethereum merchandise reinforce that shift from “headline” to “historical past.” Farside Investors notes that crypto ETFs absorbed tens of billions in 2025, whilst many holders misplaced cash as a result of they piled in close to the highs.
The similar outlet exhibits that single-day stream reversals, comparable to late-December inflows that snapped a seven-day, $1 billion outflow streak in Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, barely moved spot costs.
Markets cared extra about macro, tariffs, and leverage than about a inexperienced or purple bar on an ETF stream chart.
Distribution beats documentation
The Bitwise 11-ETF salvo lands in that reality. The filings define an attention-grabbing construction, with 60% spot cash and 40% associated ETPs and derivatives, and they sign that US regulators are snug sufficient with crypto plumbing to permit single-name merchandise in Aave or Bittensor in any respect.
But they don’t alter the structural constraints that already outline the class: asset allocators nonetheless run tight threat budgets for illiquid names, most platforms solely lately opened to crypto ETFs, and the lion’s share of flows continues to comply with the most cost-effective, most liquid beta.
Vanguard’s late-2025 decision to finally allow clients to trade third-party crypto ETFs is a higher indicator of future stream than anyone submitting.
The agency now permits entry to Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana funds however has no plans to launch its personal merchandise, echoing its stance on gold.
That tells the market the place distribution is quietly altering. The Bitwise altcoin shelf, if and when it launches, will dwell or die by whether or not giants like Vanguard, Schwab, and Merrill are prepared to hold greater than a token subset of the menu.
The boring section
For crypto markets, the sensible takeaway is that ETF headlines have entered their boring section.
In 2021, a single futures ETF approval might drive double-digit strikes in Bitcoin. In 2023-24, every incremental spot submitting for Ethereum or Solana was a narrative occasion.
By the finish of 2025, with generic itemizing requirements in place, 4 main spot property already dwell, and flows closely concentrated in a handful of funds, the marginal S-1 barely updates anybody’s mannequin.
“ETF submitting fatigue” is subsequently much less about apathy than about maturation.
Markets now value the chance of approval nicely earlier than a press launch drops, and they reserve judgment for the issues that basically matter: charge ranges, liquidity, ticker simplicity, and distributor readiness.
Until these change, “11 new crypto ETFs” will maintain producing clicks, however not, on day one, new capital.
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