Bitwise launches Avalanche ETF with plans to stake AVAX held

Bitwise Asset Management, which has $11 billion under management, launched a new Avalanche exchange-traded fund on Wednesday.

The firm intends to stake the AVAX held, according to a statement.

"Avalanche is emerging as one of the leading platforms for businesses, governments, and real-world use cases," Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said in the statement. "Avalanche's unique structure, which lets users leverage the security and scale of a large network while maintaining flexibility and control, makes it a great landing pad for enterprise-grade onchain applications."

Using Avalanche, developers can "build custom, interoperable blockchains," Bitwise said, noting that AVAX has been used by FIFA, Toyota, and the state of Wyoming for issuing its stablecoin.

Grayscale and VanEck have also launched AVAX exchange-traded funds.

The number of ETFs tracking the price of different altcoins continues to swell under President Trump's administration. Last week, Canary Capital filed to list an ETF giving exposure to the PEPE memecoin.

Monitoring early volumes for Bitwise's new Avalanche ETF, ticker symbol BAVA, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart called the newly-listed fund's $400,000 in trading in the first 90 minutes "pretty damn good."

By staking the held AVAX, Bitwise said it will use its "in-house staking division, Bitwise Onchain Solutions," to maintain liquidity while "maximizing participation in Avalanche's average staking rewards of 5.4%."