- Grayscale filed an S-1 with the SEC to turn its Avalanche Trust into a spot AVAX ETF, with Coinbase Custody and BNY Mellon involved.
- Avalanche’s market cap is about $10.2B, but its price has dropped 55% from December 2024 highs.
- Adoption is rising through SkyBridge’s $300M tokenization project and Wyoming’s FRNT stablecoin launch on Avalanche.
Grayscale Investments has taken another big step in its crypto ETF push, this time turning its sights on Avalanche (AVAX). The company filed an S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to convert its existing Avalanche Trust into a publicly traded spot ETF, giving traditional investors direct exposure to the AVAX token without needing to dive into crypto exchanges.
According to the filing, Coinbase Custody will handle safekeeping of the AVAX, while BNY Mellon is lined up to manage administration and transfers. If approved, the fund will trade under the same ticker as Avalanche itself, making the move a straightforward entry point for institutional players.
Nasdaq’s Early Play and Grayscale’s Expansion
This latest filing comes months after Nasdaq submitted paperwork in March seeking approval to list the AVAX fund. Grayscale confirmed that once the registration is effective, it will rename the vehicle to “Grayscale AVAX Trust ETF.”
It’s not the first time Grayscale has made headlines with altcoin ETFs. Over the past year, the firm has broadened its lineup with applications for Ripple’s XRP and even Dogecoin, showing just how aggressive it’s getting in chasing demand for spot crypto products.
Competitors are circling too. VanEck, a veteran in the ETF game and one of the earliest firms to chase a U.S. Bitcoin ETF, filed its own S-1 for an Avalanche product earlier this year. Clearly, issuers see Avalanche as more than just another Layer 1—it’s becoming a serious contender in the tokenization and DeFi space.
Avalanche’s Mixed Market Story
Avalanche launched in September 2020, built by Ava Labs under the guidance of Cornell professor Emin Gün Sirer. Fast forward almost five years, and the network has cemented itself as one of the bigger blockchain platforms, with a market cap sitting at roughly $10.2 billion, ranking it among the top 25 projects.
But its price action tells a tougher story. After peaking near $54.2 in December 2024, AVAX has since bled more than half its value, trading around $24.3 at the time of writing. Year-to-date, it’s down 35%, a sharp contrast to Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are both up more than 70% over the same period.
Adoption Moves: Tokenization and Stablecoins
Despite the price struggles, Avalanche hasn’t been short of adoption news. Just last week, Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital unveiled a $300 million tokenization project on the chain, signaling institutional interest in its infrastructure. On top of that, Avalanche was selected as one of the platforms for Wyoming’s Frontier Stable Token (FRNT), a state-backed digital dollar initiative, alongside Ethereum and Solana.
So while AVAX might be stumbling on the charts, its fundamentals continue to gather momentum. The ETF filing could become a catalyst if approved, opening the door for larger inflows and giving Avalanche a more solid footing in traditional finance.
