The Year in Crypto ETFs 2025: Bitcoin, Ethereum Flourish as XRP and More Join the Party

This year, exchange-traded funds opened several doors for crypto on Wall Street as the SEC developed a new approach to the products.

While asset managers previously did that fought tooth and nail to offer product tracking Bitcoin And EthereumAt the market’s bargain price, many foresaw opportunities in 2025, when the regulatory environment began to change upon President Donald Trump’s return to power in January.

As of December 15, spot Bitcoin ETFs had generated $57.7 billion in net inflows since their historic debut in January 2024, according to Farside Investors. That marked a 59% increase from $36.2 billion at the start of this year. But the influx was not consistent.

For example, investors poured $1.2 billion into spot Bitcoin ETFs on October 6, as assets neared an all-time high above $126,000, according to MintGlass. When Bitcoin’s price fell below the $90,000 mark on November 11, a few weeks later, investors withdrew $900 million from the funds.

Still, that was only the second-worst day for spot Bitcoin ETFs ever: When Bitcoin plunged in February on trading and inflation fears, the products posted $1 billion in outflows.

Since their debut last July, spot Ethereum ETFs had generated net inflows of $12.6 billion as of December 15, according to CoinGlass. While the cryptocurrency rose to an all-time high of nearly $4,950 in August, the products generated $1 billion in inflows in a single day.

With signs of increasing adoption among financial institutions, these products continued to operate largely in the background as onlookers focused on the prospect of more ETFs that could potentially boost the prices of digital assets, or increase access to new investors. Still, some are relatively focused on ETFs that track multiple cryptocurrencies at once, as products ideal for institutions.

Make it generic

Then the SEC approved In September, the regulator took action to meet expectations that had been building up for months.

The pile of applications for ETFs covering a wide range of digital assets was thick on his desk, with approvals hinging on an answer that the SEC’s previous leadership had been dancing around with for years: When should a digital asset be treated as a commodity?

Rather than being forced to make case-by-case decisions about the suitability of different cryptocurrencies, from Dogecoin to the the president’s meme coinInstead, the SEC outlined criteria for exchanges that made digital assets eligible for commodity-based trusts.

One of the most important factors is that the standards require that digital assets underlying ETFs must be traded monitored marketshave a six-month history of futures trading, or already back an exchange-traded fund with significant exposure.

That meant at least a dozen cryptocurrencies were immediately “good to use,” Bloomberg Intelligence Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas told me. Declutter in September. From his perspective, he described the move as expected.

The adoption of generic listing standards will significantly expand the number of products investors can access, but asset managers are still waiting for answers on at least 126 ETFs, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Research Analyst James Seyffart recently said said on X.

These applications focus on tokens from emerging decentralized finance projects such as the Hyperfluidas well as relatively new meme coins, including Mog.

XRP and Solana

First there was Bitcoin, then Ethereum. Now, investors in the US have access to ETFs that track the spot price XRP And Solanaamong a handful of others.

XRP and Solana were the fifth and seventh largest digital assets by market capitalization, respectively regulatory headwinds under the Biden administration, which disappeared on its way to becoming underlying assets for a number of products.

The debut of spot Bitcoin ETFs last year unleashed a wave of demand that pushed the asset’s price to new highs. While the same cannot yet be said for the smaller cryptocurrencies, products focused purely on XRP and Solana still generated notable activity.

“I don’t think they’ve had the effect on price that people might have hoped for, but I do think that, oddly enough, they’ve been huge successes and a confirmation of investor interest beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum,” Bitwise Senior Investment Strategist Juan Leon told me. Declutter.

Leon said the debut of ETFs for Solana and

Still, the spot Solana ETFs have generated net inflows of $92 million since their launch on December 15, according to CoinGlass. Spot XRP ETFs, which debuted the same month, have generated approximately $883 million in net inflows since they began trading.

The debut of Solana ETFs was notable for another reason: they were among the first ETFs to share a portion of their returns to expand with investors, a development strengthened by new guidance last month from the U.S. Treasury Department and the IRS.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has been among the financial giants that have so far passed up the opportunity to expand their line of crypto-focused products with additional assets, but Leon noted that the XRP and Solana communities may not need them.

“What we’ve seen so far with the ETF shows that these communities are much more involved, stronger and bigger than many people might have thought,” he said. “And I think this bodes well for both ecosystems in 2026.”

According to figures, net inflows for spot Dogecoin ETFs amounted to $2 million on December 15. SoSoValue.

Index wars?

In 2025, individual investors and hedge funds were among the groups most likely to hold spot crypto ETFs, but that dynamic could soon change significantly, according to Gerry O’Shea, head of global market insights at Hashdex Asset Management.

He told it Declutter that many advisors and professional investors are still conducting due diligence on ETFs that track cryptocurrencies, but he feels they could soon start seriously considering allocations to this asset class.

Then Vanguard again spotted earlier this month that it would let its 50 million customers trade a number of spot crypto ETFs on its brokerage platform. Bank of America meanwhile stated its stamp of approval on modest crypto allocations for private wealth clients starting next year.

“About a year ago there was a lot of regulatory uncertainty, and they weren’t really ready to dip their toes in the space,” he said. “And now the questions aren’t really whether or not they should be known. It’s how they should be known.”

In that sense, O’Shea believes ETFs that track an index of digital assets will become a bigger part of the discussion next year. Many professional investors appreciate the way these funds’ investments change over time, giving them relative peace of mind, he said.

“They can make an allocation to an index ETF and get broad exposure to the growth potential of the market without having to have all that kind of detailed knowledge,” O’Shea explains. “They don’t need to know everything about each of these individual assets.”

In February, Hashdex was behind the first spot ETF to track multiple digital assets in the US, with the debut of the Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index ETF. Modeled after the Nasdaq Crypto Index, it includes Cardano, Chainlink and Stellar, as well as larger cryptocurrencies.

Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, Bitwise, 21Shares and CoinShares have launched similar products, although some are seeking exposure to digital assets through derivatives. In total, the group of index ETFs offers exposure to 19 digital assets per ETF trends.

While some U.S. pension funds have purchased spot Bitcoin ETFs, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board liquidated $300 million in assets by February. This move was revealed through 13F filings that major institutional investors publish quarterly.

Al Warda Investments revealed a $500 million position in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF in November. The investment firm is affiliated with the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment, which functions as a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi.

Mubadala itself announced a position in BlackRock’s product in February, which was worth $567 million at the last minute. 13F application. It was around the same time revealed that Harvard’s endowment owned shares in the ETF worth $433 million.

Brown University and Emory University Also revealed positions in spot Bitcoin ETFs this year, which emerged as early adopters of the asset at the institutional level. Broadly speaking, analysts have said the shift could lead to a shift among investors less volatility for Bitcoin and shallower drops.

“It wasn’t dramatic, but it was notable,” O’Shea said, referring to a broader investment base. “This shift from retail to institutional is very good for the long-term sustainability of the asset class because you have people with a much longer-term horizon.”