Novel Crypto Etfs Are In The Pipeline For 2025

Key Takeaways

Today marks one year since the first wave of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds ETFs were launched in the United States. Asset managers were anxiously watching whether the crypto investment products could live up to expectations and pull in as much as 30 billion in their first year.

However, the Bitcoin ETFs attracted a whopping 65 billion throughout 2024, becoming a key catalyst in pushing Bitcoin's price from 43,000 in January 2024 to an all-time high of 108,362 in December.

The largest among those products, BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust IBIT, had the most successful debut in the ETF market's 35-year history, reflecting significant investor interest and inflows since its launch.

As per estimates, IBIT currently holds approximately 548,506 BTC, valued at 54.1 billion. Another fun fact about the spot Bitcoin ETFs is that their daily trading volume has topped 3.5 billion at the time of writing.

One year down the lane, the crypto market is optimistically looking forward to a new golden era, spearheaded by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's pledge to support the industry and introduce friendlier policies that will support the growth and innovation of the technology.

Since November, counting on the crypto-friendly tone in Washington, companies including VanEck, 21Shares, Canary Capital, Calamos, and Grayscale have been filing applications to launch exchange-traded products that track crypto assets such as Solana and Ripple, and others that combine crypto and derivatives, according to SEC filings and industry sources.

The move to launch the next wave of crypto products began weeks ahead of the U.S. presidential election, with many industry leaders anticipating a lighter regulatory environment regardless of whether Trump or Kamala Harris won.

On Monday, Calamos announced it will be launching a structured Exchange-Traded Fund ETF that aims to give investors exposure to some of Bitcoin's upside while ensuring protection during its downside. The proposed fund will combine options exposure on the Cboe Bitcoin U.S. ETF Index with Treasury holdings, which will be held for 12 months.

The exact upside cap for the fund that will trade under the ticker CBOJ is to be determined on January 22, based on options pricing. Calamos's investment offering is essentially bringing a popular equity ETF strategy to crypto.

Defined outcome products, such as buffer funds, grew in popularity in recent years as investors explored new ways to diversify their portfolios following the market-wide sell-off when both stocks and bonds declined in 2022.

However, Mat Kaufman, head of ETFs at Calamos, said his team believes that financial advisors continue to largely avoid Bitcoin because of its volatile history, and structured funds are a way to win over them.

These ETFs allow investors to gain exposure to the crypto space while doing so in a risk-managed framework. He also believes that investors will hold Calamos fund in conjunction with the Bitcoin-backed spot ETFs.

Other ETF issuers, including Innovator and First Trust, have filed to launch funds with similar strategies to those of Calamos. Asset managers like Grayscale and Roundhill are working on combining Bitcoin with income-generating strategies, filing applications for a proposed crypto-covered call fund.

Late last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC approved options trading on some of the Bitcoin ETFs, including BlackRock's IBIT, which allowed CBOE Global Markets to green-light the launch of options tied to the Cboe Bitcoin U.S. ETF Index. This cleared the way for the upcoming batch of multi-asset or hybrid ETFs that shield investors from losses on the primary asset.

Federico Brokate, head of U.S business at 21Shares - a digital asset manager who launched Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs in the US and similar products in Europe - predicted that new crypto ETFs could be introduced to the market this year, including funds tied to baskets of cryptocurrencies or ones that track a mix of alternative assets, such as Bitcoin and gold.

However, novel crypto investment products are still a gamble. While spot Bitcoin ETFs have dominated the market, a similar offering tied to Ethereum - the world's second-largest cryptocurrency by market - has attracted relatively meager inflows of 12.8 billion for the year. Spot Ethereum ETFs, which were launched halfway through 2024, gained just 53, while their Bitcoin counterparts more than doubled in value.

Todd Sohn, an ETF analyst at broker-dealer Strategas, said the reason for this could be that less widely-held cryptocurrencies are still in their infancy, and factors t