WisdomTree Makes Bold Move: Files for ETF Tracking Top 20 Digital Assets by Market Cap
Wall Street meets crypto—again. Asset manager WisdomTree just dropped paperwork for an ETF tracking the 20 largest digital assets by market cap. Because what the world needs now is another way for institutional money to pretend it 'gets' decentralization.
The filing signals growing appetite for crypto exposure—even as regulators keep playing whack-a-mole with the industry. No ticker or fees disclosed yet, but expect the usual Wall Street markup wrapped in blockchain buzzwords.
Will this finally be the ETF that sticks? Or just another financialized crypto product doomed to bleed fees while underperforming Bitcoin? Place your bets—the house always wins.
WisdomTree to launch CoinDesk 20 ETF
The WisdomTree S-1 filing revealed that the ETF will invest directly in the underlying digital assets in approximately the same proportions as the index. Share prices will be calculated daily using CCData Blended Reference Prices, which is a combination of fiat and stablecoin-converted trading pairs.
The WisdomTree CoinDesk 20 Fund is not registered as an investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and is not subject to SEC investment adviser regulations. It is also not part of any commodity pool under the Commodity Exchange Act, and the sponsor is not regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in connection with this ETF.
The Trust plans to issue shares by continuously redeeming them in “Creation Units,” with cash transactions based on the value of underlying assets, adjusted for sponsor fees and expenses.
The SEC may have recently approved in-kind creations and redemptions for certain spot digital asset exchange-traded products, but WisdomTree said it will notify shareholders if and when in-kind transactions become available.
CoinDesk 20 Index calculates asset values using a 24-hour volume-weighted average price from a curated selection of exchanges with an outlier detection system. Assets are weighted by market capitalization, and the largest constituent is capped at 30%, while all others are limited to 20%. Excess weight is redistributed proportionally, reconstituted and rebalanced quarterly at the close of the last business day.
NovaDius Wealth Management President Nate Geraci said on X that “CoinDesk is aggressively seeking to position itself in crypto indexing,” which he reckoned would be “massive,” for the digital currency industry.
According to Saturday midday trading data, the CoinDesk 20 index stood at 3,341, a positive 4.41% price correction from Friday’s 3,151 close at 4 PM ET. The level is a modest upturn from the index’s reading of 3,241.28 on Wednesday, when it had risen about 133.71 points, and another uptick on Thursday that took it further to 3,268.
Two of the largest gainers in the last 24 hours are NEAR Protocol and Polkadot, which recorded gains of 20% and 17% respectively.
WisdomTree Chainlink partnership and Q3 success
Moving away from ETFs, WisdomTree has also been active in developing blockchain-based solutions. On November 5, the firm and chainlink launched a live net asset value feed for the CRDT tokenized private credit fund on Ethereum. The integration provides decentralized pricing to users through 16 independent oracle operators using Chainlink’s DataLink Services.
Maredith Hannon, Head of Business Development for Digital Assets at WisdomTree, said the firm is “excited to implement the Chainlink data standard to bring NAV data on-chain for our Private Credit and Alternative Income Fund.”
Earlier this week, WisdomTree reported third-quarter earnings for the fiscal year 2025, posting revenue of US$125.62 million and net income of US$19.7 million. The firm declared a US$0.03 per share quarterly dividend and announced an increase in its equity buyback authorization to US$564.9 million.
Looking ahead, the company projects revenue of $600.8 million and net income of $227.8 million by 2028. The positive scenario assumes a 10.6% annual revenue increase and a $168.2 million earnings rise from the current $59.6 million.
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