Grayscale Files to Convert Avalanche Trust to ETF

Crypto asset manager Grayscale submitted a registration statement for its Avalanche Trust to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, seeking approval to “uplist” the investment vehicle and convert it into a full-fledged exchange-traded fund.

The product, which Grayscale introduced last year as a private placement for accredited investors, would offer exposure to Avalanche’s spot price on the Nasdaq, while the fund’s coins are safeguarded by crypto exchange Coinbase, according to an SEC filing.

Friday’s filing represented another step in the approval process for Avalanche-focused funds, as asset managers race to establish similar products for other altcoins like Solana and XRP.

In March, the Nasdaq filed a 19b-4 form on Grayscale’s behalf to list shares of its Avalanche Trust. Crypto asset manager VanEck established a trust company for an Avalanche fund in Delaware weeks earlier, and is pursuing a spot Avalanche ETF in the U.S. itself.

In June, the SEC punted on VanEck’s application, giving itself additional time to make a decision. Applications focused on other cryptocurrencies have faced similar delays.

The Commission gave Grayscale permission to list an ETF holding Solana, XRP, and Cardano in July—but the debut was subsequently paused. The SEC later said that month that it had approved an order advancing a “merit-neutral approach” to applications for certain crypto-focused ETFs. Experts are expecting a series of approvals in October, following the debut of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in the U.S. last year.

In late June, Bloomberg ETF Analyst James Seyffart penciled in a 90% chance that Avalanche ETFs are approved in the U.S. this year. He issued similar odds for applications for ETFs holding Dogecoin, Cardano, Polkadot, and HBAR.

Avalanche is the 22nd largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, worth $10 billion, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. On Monday, the token’s price fell to $24, a 7.6% decrease over the past day.

In April, investment bank Standard Chartered predicted that the token could hit a price of $55 by the end of the year and $250 by the end of the decade, citing its unique approach to scaling through so-called app networks, previously called subnets. AVAX previously peaked at a price just shy of $155 back in 2021.

Avalanche is one of the more popular layer-1 networks when it comes to decentralized finance, or DeFi. The network had nearly $2 billion worth of assets being used within DeFi applications on Monday, according to crypto data provider DefiLlama.