Where Crypto ETFs Stand in 2026

To anyone surprised by the revelation that there are more ETFs than US stocks, there are far more varieties of cryptocurrency out there, ranging from bitcoin to Fartcoin.

The latter example, with a market cap of $400 million, is surprisingly not that ridiculous, compared with many other downmarket digital assets, whose names we probably shouldn’t mention. The good news is that out of more than 10,000 crypto varieties out there, very few will probably materialize in ETF format. With only two years’ of history in crypto exchange-traded products in the US, it’s early days. And the industry may be on the cusp of a product explosion, as the SEC recently granted exchanges permission to use generic listing standards for fund issuers.

“The ETF industry is excellent at creating new products, and the wide variety of funds that they’ve invented for the stocks market will be replicated for the crypto market,” said Ric Edelman, founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals. “So, watch for lots more to come.”

Ghosts of Cryptos Past, Present and Yet to Come

Crypto ETFs are no longer just about exposure to digital assets, and many of the newer products are leveraged or buffered. Staking is also becoming common. For example, Grayscale’s Ethereum Staking ETF made its first rewards distribution to shareholders at the beginning of 2026, an industry first. The financial services industry has been all but forced to accept crypto ETFs, and one of its biggest players, Vanguard, announced last month that it would allow some of the more well-established products on its platform. Most recently, Morgan Stanley filed for its own products, including ETFs focused on bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana. 

To date, there are about 140 US exchange-traded products focused on crypto, according to data from Morningstar Direct:

• Nearly half of the total $146 billion in assets are in one product, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT). Of the top 20 ETFs by assets, only one, the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF ($717 million, 17th biggest), has exposure to anything other than bitcoin or Ethereum.
• The existing list of products covers other digital asset types, including XRP, Litecoin, BNB, Chainlink, Hedera, Stellar, Dogecoin, Bonk, Horizen, Basic Attention Token, Sui, Filecoin, Livepeer, Polkadot and Near. There are also a few crypto index ETFs.
• Issuers have also filed for a range of other categories, such as Injective, Hyperliquid, Cardano, Avalanche, Bittensor and Trumpcoin. One company, Canary, famously filed last year for PENGU, an ETF focused on the Pudgy Penguins NFTs.

It’s a Buyer’s Market: If the assets and flows across crypto ETFs show anything, it’s that investors primarily want bitcoin and Ethereum. There may be room for other digital asset types, but financial advisors, who usually recommend small allocations to crypto, probably won’t be interested anytime soon. Advisors may consider index and buffer ETFs, as well as products that mix digital assets and equities, “but esoteric funds won’t gain much traction with advisors, any more than pink sheet stocks do,” Edelman said. “So, meme coins and unusual trading strategies will remain small, serving a niche market.”