Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson (Patricia De Melo Moreira/Getty Images)

Grayscale piles on altcoin ETFs with cardano filing

Grayscale is on a crypto ETF roll.

2/11/25 2:41PM

Cardano is back in the crypto conversation as digital asset heavyweight Grayscale filed for a cardano ETF with the SEC yesterday. Last week, it filed a 19-b4 form with NYSE Arca to transform its doge trust into a doge ETF.

Cardano is the ninth-largest crypto by market cap, at $28 billion, according to CoinGecko. On Tuesday morning, hours after the Grayscale filing, the token was up 12.3%.

A Grayscale spokesperson, commenting on the cardano filing, said the firm was “appreciative of the opportunity to innovate while engaging constructively with regulators as they review crypto ETPs.”

“We remain optimistic about the potential of bringing digital assets further into the US regulatory perimeter in the ETP wrapper on behalf of Grayscale’s clients,” the spokesperson added.

This cardano ETF filing is the “first one in US and ballpark 60th crypto ETF filed this year so far,” Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst, said in an X post.

The pace of altcoin and meme coin ETF filings is dizzying, especially considering that the SEC approved bitcoin spot ETFs just over a year ago. Firms, including Bitwise and Rex Osprey, are rushing to file such ETFs — whether they’re $TRUMP, doge, bonk, or XRP ETFs — taking advantage of the pro-crypto administration and wanting to get in early.

Approvals for these also seem to be fairly imminent. Balchunas recently posted his “altcoin ETF approval odds” on X.

“Litecoin leads w 90% chance, then Doge, followed by Solana and XRP,” he added.

NEW: @EricBalchunas and I took a look at the filings for spot crypto ETFs. We're putting out relatively high odds of approval across the board. Mainly focused on Litecoin, Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin for now.

Here's the table with the odds and some other details: pic.twitter.com/xaXaNXLb0M
— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) February 10, 2025

Grayscale also filed to convert its XRP trust into an XRP ETF, as well as its solana and litecoin trusts into ETFs.

Todd Ruoff, CEO of Autonomys, noted that ADA hasn’t really been “in the mainstream for some time,” adding that Grayscale’s application faces headwinds. “At least in the short term, with the lack of a regulated CME futures market and the SEC having previously labeled cardano as a security,” he said.

He added, however, that the move exemplifies the industry’s “relentless drive to pave the way for broader crypto-ETF adoption and integration into mainstream finance.”

Other experts also noted that ADA boasts an essential differentiator from, say, solana, namely regarding distribution and centralization.

Solana, “while advancing in speed, has faced criticism for centralization but is actively working towards broader decentralization,” Alan Orwick, cofounder of Quai Network, said. “Cardano boasts a more community-driven approach with over 3,000 validator nodes.”

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy is a financial journalist who’s written for Dow Jones, The Financial Times Group, and Business Insider.

Sage D. Young

11h

Zcash nosedives after counterfeit vulnerability revealed

The privacy-focused cryptocurrency has dropped more than 40% in the last 24 hours, shedding $3.8 billion in market capitalization.

$62B

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy11h

Bitcoin digital asset treasuries (DATs) have taken a big hit amid bitcoin’s tumble, shedding $62 billion in value since the asset’s October 6 all-time high, Artemis data shows, with their fully diluted market cap dropping to $72 billion from $134 billion in early October.

Meanwhile, bitcoin, which has fallen below $62,000 on Friday morning, is down 50% from its all-time high. DAT pioneer Strategy’s market cap stood at $102.2 billion on October 6, according to Macro Trends, and is now down to $45.6 billion, a 55% decline. Strategy has been in hot water since it sold 32 bitcoin earlier this week, and because its digital credit instrument, STRC, has been trading below its par value. Shares of Strategy are down 17% in the past week.

Sage D. Young6/4/26

“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter” as sector sinks, with tokens hitting multiyear lows

On Thursday, altcoins swept lower as bitcoin weakened. The tokens with the biggest losses in the last 24 hours are NEAR, ethena, and Zcash, each declining double digits in the period.

Other tokens have dropped to lows not seen in over a year in the past 24 hours:

Ethereum dropped 4.4% to under $1,780, a level not seen since April 2025.
XRP declined 4.5% to an 18-month low last hit in November 2024.
Solana decreased 6% to trade below the $70 mark, its lowest price since December 2023.
Dogecoin slid below $0.09, a 27-month low last seen in February 2024.

“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter as fears surrounding BTC/STRC and its potential overflow compound and overshadow anything that can be read as positive news (e.g. CLARITY movements),” according to Sean Dawson, head of research at crypto options platform Derive.xyz.

“[Altcoins] are high beta plays to BTC and are typically sold heavily in a downturn. Simply put, I’d be even more bearish on alts,” Dawson told Sherwood News.

“Further, liquidity has been drained into this year’s ‘superhot’ narrative of AI/data centers. In other words, there are just better, more exciting opportunities elsewhere,” Dawson added.

One cryptocurrency that has bucked the downtrend has been worldcoin, the native token for World, the digital identity project backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. While the broader crypto market has been pushing lower, WLD has jumped nearly 5% in the last 24 hours and 90% in the past seven days, data from CoinGecko shows.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

6/4/26

Bitcoin nears February lows amid $1.4 billion exiting its ETFs

“This week has been painful in crypto. There is really no other way of putting it.”