A dramatic shift in the crypto market structure: altcoin ETFs explode, completing in six months what Bitcoin took ten years to achieve.

Author: Clow

It took nearly ten years for Bitcoin ETFs to be approved, while altcoins only took half a year.

In November 2025, something incredible happened on Wall Street. Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin—these altcoins, once regarded as "speculative toys" by mainstream finance—suddenly listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq in just a few weeks, transforming themselves into regulated ETF products.

In November 2025, something incredible happened on Wall Street. Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin—these altcoins, once regarded as "speculative toys" by mainstream finance, collectively listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq in just a few weeks, transforming themselves into regulated ETF products.

02Solana ETF: A Bold Attempt at Staking Yields

Solana, leveraging the technological halo of its high-performance public blockchain, has become the third "blue-chip" asset to be ETF-ized, following BTC and ETH.

As of November 2025, six Solana ETFs have been listed, including Bitwise's BSOL, Grayscale's GSOL, and VanEck's VSOL. Among them, Bitwise's BSOL is the most aggressive—it not only provides SOL price exposure but also attempts to distribute on-chain yields to investors through a staking mechanism.

This is a bold attempt. The SEC has long considered staking services as securities offerings, but Bitwise explicitly labeled it a "Staking ETF" in its S-1 filing, attempting to design a compliant structure to distribute staking rewards. If successful, this would allow the Solana ETF to not only capture price increases but also provide a "dividend-like" cash flow, making it far more attractive than a non-yielding Bitcoin ETF. Another point of contention is that Solana does not have futures contracts on the CME. According to the SEC's historical logic, this should have been a reason for rejection. However, the regulators ultimately gave it the green light, possibly indicating that they recognize the long trading history of regulated exchanges like Coinbase as sufficient for effective price discovery. Market performance has also been impressive. According to SoSoValue data, the Solana ETF has recorded net inflows for 20 consecutive days since its launch, accumulating $568 million. While Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs faced large-scale net outflows in November, the Solana ETF bucked the trend and attracted funds. As of the end of November, the total assets under management of the six Solana funds reached $843 million, approximately 1.09% of the SOL market capitalization. This indicates that institutional funds are rotating assets, withdrawing from crowded Bitcoin trading and seeking emerging assets with higher beta and growth potential.

03XRP ETF: Value Reassessment After Regulatory Settlement

XRP's path to becoming an ETF has been hindered by the legal dispute between Ripple Labs and the SEC. After the two parties reached a settlement in August 2025, the sword of Damocles hanging over XRP finally fell, and ETF applications surged.

As of November, five XRP ETFs have been listed or are about to be listed: Bitwise's XRP ETF listed on November 20, directly using "XRP" as its trading symbol. This bold marketing strategy has sparked controversy—some consider it a brilliant move, allowing retail investors to directly locate it when searching; others criticize it for confusing the underlying asset with derivative funds. Canary's XRPC was the first to list on November 13, with a record inflow of $243 million on its first day. Grayscale's GXRP was listed on November 24th, converted from a trust, eliminating the premium/discount issue. Despite strong initial inflows, XRP prices faced short-term pressure after the ETF's listing. Within days of the Bitwise ETF's listing, XRP prices fell by approximately 7.6%, at one point dropping over 18%. This is a classic example of "buy the rumor, sell the fact" behavior. Speculative funds bought in advance when expectations of ETF approval formed, then took profits after the news was released. Macroeconomic factors (such as strong employment data weakening expectations of interest rate cuts) also suppressed the overall performance of risk assets. However, in the long run, ETFs have introduced continuous passive buying for XRP. Data shows that since its launch, the XRP ETF has seen a cumulative net inflow of over $587 million. Speculators are retreating, but institutional funds are entering the market, building a higher long-term bottom for XRP prices. 04 Dogecoin ETF: From Meme to Asset Class The ETFification of Dogecoin marks a significant turning point: Wall Street began to accept "meme coins" based on community consensus and network effects as legitimate investment targets. Currently, there are three Dogecoin-related products: Grayscale's GDOG was listed on November 24th; Bitwise's BWOW has submitted an 8(a) application and is awaiting automatic approval; 21Shares' TXXD is a 2x leveraged product targeting investors with a high risk tolerance. Market reaction has been relatively lukewarm. GDOG's first-day trading volume was only $1.41 million, with no net inflow recorded. This may stem from the highly retail nature of Dogecoin's investor base—they prefer to hold tokens directly on exchanges rather than paying management fees through ETFs.

However, the market generally expects Bitwise's BWOW to activate institutional demand in this sector with its lower fees and stronger marketing capabilities.

05The next wave: Litecoin, HBAR, and BNB

In addition to the three popular altcoins, Litecoin, Hedera (HBAR), and BNB are also actively seeking ETFification.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) proposed the concept of a "Crypto Multiplier": the market capitalization of crypto assets responds non-linearly to capital inflows.For altcoins, whose liquidity is far lower than Bitcoin's, the institutional funds brought in by ETFs can have a huge price impact. According to Kaiko data, Bitcoin's recent 1% market depth is approximately $535 million, while most altcoins have a market depth only a fraction of that. This means that an equivalent inflow of funds (such as the $105 million on the first day of the Bitwise XRP ETF) should theoretically have a much greater impact on XRP's price than on BTC. The current "sell the fact" phenomenon masks this effect. Market makers need to buy spot during the initial ETF subscription period, but if market sentiment is generally bearish, they may use the futures market to short hedge or digest inventory in the over-the-counter market, suppressing spot price increases in the short term. However, as ETF assets accumulate, this passive buying will gradually drain exchange liquidity, leading to more volatile and upward-trending prices in the future. 07 Market Segmentation: A New Valuation System The introduction of ETFs has exacerbated liquidity stratification in the crypto market: First Tier (ETF Assets): BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE. These assets have compliant fiat currency access, allowing Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) and pension funds to allocate them without barriers. They will enjoy a "compliance premium" and lower liquidity risk. The second tier (non-ETF assets): Other Layer 1 and DeFi tokens. Due to the lack of ETF access, these assets will continue to rely on retail funds and on-chain liquidity, and their correlation with mainstream assets may decrease, facing the risk of marginalization. This differentiation will reshape the valuation logic of the entire crypto market, shifting from speculation-driven to a multi-polar valuation based on compliance access and institutional allocation.

08 Summary

The altcoin ETF wave at the end of 2025 marks a decisive step for crypto assets from "fringe speculation" to "mainstream allocation."

By cleverly utilizing the "General Listing Standard" and "Section 8(a)", issuers successfully breached the SEC's defenses, bringing previously controversial assets such as Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin onto regulated exchanges. This not only provides these assets with a compliant funding channel, but more importantly, it effectively confirms their "non-securities" status at the legal level. Despite short-term profit-taking pressure, as institutional investors begin allocating 1%-5% of their portfolios to these assets in their models, the inflow of structured funds will inevitably drive up the valuations of these "digital commodities." In the next 6-12 months, we will see more assets (such as Avalanche and Chainlink) attempt to replicate this path. In the multipolar crypto market, ETFs will become the most important dividing line between "core assets" and "fringe assets." For investors, this transformation brings not only investment opportunities but also a complete restructuring of the market landscape: a market once driven by speculation and narratives is evolving towards a new order anchored by compliance channels and institutional allocation. This process is irreversible.