Grayscale Investments withdrew planned ETFs tied to Cardano (ADA), Polkadot (DOT) and Hedera (HBAR), ending three proposals before any fund reached the market.
Key Points:
- Grayscale filed three ETF withdrawal requests with the SEC late Friday.
- None of the registrations became effective, and no securities were issued or sold.
- ADA, DOT and HBAR have all posted steep losses during 2026.
Grayscale ETF Withdrawals
Grayscale submitted three withdrawal requests to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission within four minutes late Friday, telling the regulator it “does not intend to proceed with the planned distribution” of shares for each trust. The withdrawals came from Grayscale, not the SEC.
The Cardano and Polkadot registration statements were initially filed on Aug. 29, 2025, while Hedera’s registration followed on Sept. 9, 2025, after earlier ETF proposals for ADA and DOT arrived in February. The planned funds were passive products designed to track the value of their respective tokens after fees and expenses.
In each Form RW filing, Grayscale said the registration statement had not become effective, no securities had been issued or sold and no preliminary prospectus had been distributed. Investors never received shares in any of the three funds.
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Crypto ETF Context
The withdrawals narrow Grayscale’s pipeline of proposed single-token funds while ADA, DOT and HBAR remain under sustained market pressure. Year to date, ADA has fallen more than 41%, DOT has lost 54% and HBAR is down 35%.
Losses since late February 2025 have been deeper, with ADA down about 70%, DOT falling roughly 80% and HBAR losing more than 70%. Grayscale did not cite those declines as the reason.
Grayscale still lists 17 ETF and ETP products on its website, including products tied to Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Hyperliquid (HYPE). Those existing products remain unaffected.
Grayscale first pursued a Cardano ETF in February 2025 and followed with a Polkadot proposal later that month, while the Hedera registration arrived in September. By August 2026, none had taken effect after roughly a year of work. None ever reached the market.
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