According to Blockworks, while US-listed ETFs often dominate the headlines, there is a broader world of crypto investment products that are performing well. A significant majority of assets under management (AUM) in crypto investment products are tied to bitcoin and ether, but there are also a variety of other products holding different cryptocurrencies.
As the US awaits the SEC's formal approval of ether ETF registration statements and decisions on solana ETFs, there are already numerous ETPs, ETNs, and ETCs listed in the US and Europe backed by these cryptocurrencies. There are also products with direct exposure to 33 additional tokens, including celestia, optimism, fantom, uniswap, and stacks. Solana is currently the third most popular choice among traditional finance types, with $1.22 billion split between funds from 21Shares, CoinShares, Grayscale, VanEck, WisdomTree, ETC, and Virtune.
BNB, ethereum classic, and litecoin follow, with cumulative AUM ranging from $719.4 million for BNB to $142.5 million for litecoin. Interestingly, a Grayscale trust still holds hundreds of millions of dollars in ethereum classic due to its closed-ended nature.
However, while purchasing these cryptocurrencies is one aspect, holding the right ones is another. Over half of the tokens held by investment products have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past year. Solana, ton, near, livepeer, maker, and celestia have led the way, all posting more than 200% returns since this time last year. Bitcoin and ether were up 102% and 76% respectively, while the S&P 500 gained about 23% over the same period.
Despite these successes, some cryptocurrencies have underperformed. One-third of the cryptocurrencies held by the analyzed products have seen a decrease in value over the past year. Litecoin, arbitrum, cosmos, and the sandbox have been the worst performers, down between 34% and 26%. This shows that while some token supplies might be consumed by traditional investment products, there can still be risks for these buyers. The performance of the tokens alone shows that the strike rate isn't bad at all.
