Hashdex's DEFI ETF calls it a day — small fund, big ghost 🪦

Hashdex will close and liquidate its smallest spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, the Hashdex Bitcoin ETF, after a review of its product lineup concluded the vehicle was too small to justify its operating costs. In a Monday filing, the fund issuer said the decision followed an evaluation of trading liquidity, expenses and investor demand, and disclosed the fund holds roughly 225 BTC.

Trading on NYSE Arca under the DEFI ticker since March 2024, the fund carried net assets of $14.25 million, according to the fund's website, and roughly 200,000 shares outstanding. Hashdex will stop accepting creation orders from authorized participants after August 17, with investors able to buy or sell shares through brokers until the final trading session closes. Shareholders who remain in the fund through that date will receive a cash distribution, expected around August 28.

The product launched in 2022 as a futures-based fund, the Hashdex Bitcoin Futures ETF, before converting to a spot Bitcoin strategy in March 2024. Its peak assets stood at $17.54 million on May 9, 2025, according to data tracker SoSoValue. As of July 30, DEFI held about $14.7 million in assets, a net asset value of $71.32 per share and a closing price of $71.15 as of July 31, making it the smallest among U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs and trailing the next-largest competitor, WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust (BTCW), which held $140.37 million in net assets as of Friday's market close.

The DEFI fund entered the market late relative to the cohort of spot Bitcoin ETFs that debuted months earlier, with 10 competing products already trading when it converted. Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said in a March 27, 2024 post that "the getting is so good right now I could see this one getting some bites (if the fee is competitive) despite being so late," when BTC was trading above the then-record $73,000. The fund normally invests at least 95% of its assets in spot Bitcoin, with the remainder permitted in cash, cash equivalents or CME-listed Bitcoin futures.

Hashdex did not announce a successor spot Bitcoin ETF product in its filing, and the wind-down caps a more than two-year run for a product that launched as a futures fund before pivoting into the crowded spot market. The decision underscores the scale challenge facing late-arriving issuers, as DEFI's roughly $14.25 million in assets remained a fraction of the multibillion-dollar leaders in the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF category.