First U.S. spot bitcoin ETF liquidation hits as capital flees to AI funds
Hashdex is pulling the plug on its U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund, marking what appears to be the first U.S. spot bitcoin ETF liquidation involving a fund that holds bitcoin directly rather than futures contracts. The Brazilian asset manager’s DEFI fund, the smallest of its peer group with just $14.7 million in net assets, will stop trading after August 17, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reported by CoinDesk. The closure lands at a moment when investor enthusiasm is visibly tilting away from crypto and toward artificial intelligence plays.
Key takeaways
- Hashdex will liquidate its DEFI spot bitcoin ETF after August 17, selling remaining bitcoin and distributing cash to shareholders.
- DEFI held just $14.7 million in net assets, dwarfed by WisdomTree’s BTCW ($142.4 million) and BlackRock’s IBIT ($47.08 billion).
- It is the first liquidation of a U.S. fund that holds bitcoin directly; earlier closures involved futures-based ETFs.
- Bitcoin ETFs as a group have posted net outflows for three straight months as money rotates into AI-linked funds.
- BlackRock’s iShares Future AI & Tech ETF gained 39% through July while the crypto market, tracked by the CoinDesk 20 Index, fell about 36%.
Hashdex to Liquidate U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETF DEFI
DEFI’s trading will end after August 17, after which Hashdex will begin selling off the fund’s remaining bitcoin holdings and returning the cash proceeds to shareholders. That timeline, laid out in the SEC filing, puts an unusually clear end date on a product that never managed to build meaningful scale.
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