Bitwise Avalanche ETF debuts on NYSE with ticker BAVA

Bitwise Investments has launched its spot Avalanche ETF, now trading under the ticker BAVA on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), according to a Wednesday statement.

The product offers investors a regulated avenue to gain exposure to AVAX, the native token of the Avalanche blockchain, which has positioned itself for enterprise and government use.

Bitwise rolls out BAVA with zero-fee trading and yield strategy

The fund debuted with a 0% sponsor fee for the first month, covering up to $500 million in assets. After this initial period, the sponsor fee will rise to 0.34%.

Bitwise intends to stake a portion of the fund's AVAX holdings through its Bitwise Onchain Solutions division.

The strategy targets staking approximately 70% of assets, while maintaining a 30% liquidity reserve subject to monthly review. Net staking rewards, worth approximately 5.4% annually, will be distributed to shareholders after expenses, though returns are not guaranteed.

As with other spot crypto ETFs, BAVA is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and carries notable risks. These include price volatility, uncertainties tied to staking such as potential slashing, and operational challenges associated with blockchain networks.

"With BAVA, investors can gain exposure to an asset that we believe is powering the next wave of blockchain adoption across global finance and enterprise," said Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan.

Bitwise, which manages around $11 billion in client assets, has aggressively expanded into the altcoin ETF market. The firm introduced the first US spot Solana staking ETF (BSOL) in October, followed by dedicated products tied to XRP and Dogecoin.

The company also filed for 11 additional single-token strategy ETFs, including offerings linked to Aave, Sui, Bittensor and Uniswap.

Meanwhile, Avalanche's subnet architecture has supported a growing range of real-world use cases, from FIFA's digital collectibles initiatives to state-backed stablecoins and institutional tokenization experiments. 

"When we tokenized our funds, we chose Avalanche because it enables us to build our own private, secure lane on the internet. It was like moving from old-school paper mail to an instant, secure messaging app," said Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge.

AVAX continues to trade near $10 on Wednesday, with minor weekly gains of 2%.