Hashdex Announces Closure of Underperforming Bitcoin ETF After Two-Year Struggle

Hashdex Announces Closure of Underperforming Bitcoin ETF After Two-Year Struggle

After failing to accumulate more than $18 million in total assets since its launch, the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund will distribute proceeds to shareholders and liquidate its 225 BTC holdings over the next several weeks.

The fund issuer Hashdex announced plans to wind down its spot-price Bitcoin exchange-traded fund later this month, with plans to liquidate approximately 225 BTC in holdings and distribute the proceeds in cash to shareholders who remain invested in the product.

According to a regulatory filing submitted on Monday, the issuer reached this conclusion following a comprehensive assessment of multiple considerations, including the fund's trading liquidity levels, operational expenses, and the degree of interest from the investing community. Trading on NYSE ARCA since March 2024 under the ticker symbol DEFI, the fund currently holds 200,000 outstanding shares representing net assets totaling $14.25 million, based on information published on the fund's official website.

Arriving behind schedule in a competitive landscape where 10 rival BTC ETFs had already made their market debuts several months earlier, industry observers nonetheless identified potential opportunities during a period when BTC was exchanging hands at what was then its record peak of over $73,000.

The getting is so good right now I could see this one getting some bites (if the fee is competitive) despite being so late

Bloomberg Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas in a March 27, 2024 post

Initially introduced to the market in 2022 under the name Hashdex Bitcoin Futures ETF as a futures-based product, the fund's peak asset accumulation reached $17.54 million on May 9, 2025, based on statistics compiled by the data tracking platform SoSoValue. Among the BTC exchange-traded funds available to US investors, the second-smallest by asset size is the WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust (BTCW), which reported net assets of $140.37 million at the conclusion of Friday's trading session.