Bitwise: Crypto ETF event is coming

Author: Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer, Bitwise; Translated by: AIMan@黄金财经

In my investment memos, I usually try to offer some perspective on market dynamics. For example, last week I wrote about why it's 'Solana Season' and predicted that Ethereum's top competitor, Solana, would see a strong year-end rally.

Since then, Solana has risen 7.72%, which is good.

But watching the cryptocurrency market right now is like watching the Super Bowl pregame show. Interest rate cuts, surging ETP inflows, growing concerns about the US dollar, and strong momentum in tokenization and stablecoins all point to a spectacular year-end rally. Yet, as investors, we're mostly on the sidelines. Why? For one thing, August and September are historically the worst performing months of the year for cryptocurrencies. But a bigger reason is that major developments—such as the recent approval of Bitcoin ETPs by major brokerages or progress in Congress on new legislation—often take time to materialize. So, while we wait, I'd like to update you on the latest developments regarding the US SEC's approval of cryptocurrency ETPs. It seems to me that the SEC is poised to completely liberalize this market.

Universal Listing Standard

Currently, the US SEC approves spot cryptocurrency ETPs on a case-by-case basis. If you want to launch a spot cryptocurrency ETP based on a new asset in the US (such as the Solana ETP or the Chainlink ETP), you must submit a special application to the SEC for approval.

In your filing, you must prove certain things about the market: that it has sufficient liquidity to support the ETP, that it is not subject to manipulation, and so on.

To put it mildly, this takes time. The SEC's review process for each application takes up to 240 days, and even then, approval is not guaranteed. Example A: The first spot Bitcoin ETP application was filed in 2013, but the SEC didn't approve it until 2024. Applications are always a costly and risky endeavor.

But as we speak, the SEC is developing a "universal listing standard" for cryptocurrency ETPs. The idea is that under the universal listing standards, as long as an application meets certain clearly defined requirements, the SEC is virtually guaranteed to approve it. Approval is also rapid: applications are expected to be approved in 75 days or less. What are the requirements? The SEC is still grappling with this issue and taking industry feedback. Currently, most proposals suggest that issuers should be able to launch spot cryptocurrency ETPs as long as the futures contract for the underlying asset is traded on a regulated US futures exchange. Eligible futures exchanges include giants like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe), but could also include lesser-known derivatives platforms like Coinbase Derivatives Exchange and Bitnomial. Assuming this broader list is approved, the list of crypto assets that could soon receive ETP status could include Solana, XRP, Chainlink, Cardano, Avalanche, Polkadot, Hedera, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. This list is likely to grow as more futures contracts are launched. What History Tells Us The adoption of universal listing standards (possibly as early as October) could lead to a surge in new cryptocurrency ETPs. This seems intuitive, but ETF history also supports this point. Until late 2019, all ETFs (including equity ETFs, bond ETFs, and others) followed the same case-by-case regulatory approval model currently used for cryptocurrency ETPs. However, in 2019, the US SEC adopted Rule ETF, establishing universal listing standards for both equity and bond ETPs. This led to a surge in ETF issuance. The chart below, from ETFGI, shows the number of US ETFs listed by year. Before Rule ETF was implemented, the ETF industry averaged 117 new ETFs listed annually. Since Rule ETF was implemented, this number has more than tripled to 370 per year.

Universal listing standards have significantly accelerated the pace of ETF issuance.

Source: Bitwise Asset Management, data from ETFGI. ETFGI data is sourced from ETF/ETP sponsors, exchanges, regulatory filings, Thomson Reuters/Lipper, Bloomberg, public sources, and internally generated data. The data range is from January 2003 to July 2025.

As the number of ETFs has increased, the number of ETF issuers has also surged, as it has become much simpler for companies to launch ETFs.

I expect the same trend to play out here. We should see the emergence of dozens of single-asset crypto ETPs, as well as the rise of index-based crypto ETPs, and I suspect we'll also see many, if not most, traditional asset managers launch spot crypto ETPs. What this means for crypto prices It's easy for investors to misjudge what this means for the market. The mere existence of a cryptocurrency ETP doesn't guarantee significant inflows. The underlying asset needs to have strong fundamentals. For example, the Ethereum spot ETP launched in June 2024 but didn't really start attracting assets until April 2025, when interest in stablecoins (primarily based on Ethereum) began to pick up. Similarly, I suspect ETPs built on assets like BCH will struggle to attract inflows unless assets like BCH themselves experience a resurgence. However, the emergence of ETPs means that assets will be more vulnerable to shocks if fundamentals begin to shift. The majority of global capital is controlled by traditional investors, and ETPs make it much easier for these investors to allocate to cryptocurrencies. Here's a more important, perhaps harder-to-quantify, point: ETPs demystify cryptocurrencies. They make them less intimidating, more visible, and more accessible to the average investor. For crypto natives with a dozen wallet addresses, Chainlink, Avalanche, or Polkadot are no longer unfamiliar-sounding tokens; they're now stock tickers accessible to anyone with a brokerage account. This makes people more aware of the real-world nature of cryptocurrencies and their rich use cases. They're more likely to notice articles about Chainlink's payment partnership with Mastercard, Wyoming's use of Avalanche to issue a stablecoin, or Standard Chartered Bank's exploration of XRP-based cross-border payment technology. The US SEC's adoption of a universal listing standard signals the "maturity" of the cryptocurrency industry, signaling its entry into top-tier status. But this is just the beginning.