Hashdex Yanks Tiniest Bitcoin ETF After a Two-Year Run at the Bottom of the Stack 🪦

Hashdex will liquidate its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund this month, returning cash to shareholders and selling the roughly 225 BTC held by the fund, according to a Monday filing. The issuer cited trading liquidity, operating costs and investor interest among the factors in its decision to wind down the product.

The fund's 200,000 shares traded on NYSE Arca under the DEFI ticker since March 2024 and held $14.25 million in net assets, according to the fund's website. It was the smallest spot Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. market, which now includes 10 other competing BTC ETFs. The next largest among them, WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust (BTCW), had $140.37 million in net assets as of Friday's market close.

Hashdex originally launched the vehicle in 2022 as a futures-based product, Hashdex Bitcoin Futures ETF, before converting it to track spot price. Its peak asset level was $17.54 million, reached on May 9, 2025, according to data tracker SoSoValue. The fund debuted months after the first U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs began trading and entered the market when BTC was trading near the then-all-time high of more than $73,000.

Bloomberg Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas commented on the launch prospects in a March 27, 2024 post, writing, "The getting is so good right now I could see this one getting some bites (if the fee is competitive) despite being so late." Investors and analysts have continued to weigh fee levels, liquidity and asset bases as distinguishing factors among the now-crowded field of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs.

The liquidation marks one of the first closures of a U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF since the products launched in January 2024, underscoring the competitive pressure on smaller issuers in a market dominated by the largest fund families. Hashdex continues to offer other crypto-related investment products.