Grayscale Drops Cardano ETF Days Before Key Milestone

Grayscale withdrew the S-1 filings for its Cardano, Hedera and Polkadot ETFs on August 7, 2026 NYSE Arca and Nasdaq had already dropped the related exchange listing proposals in September and November 2025 ADA, HBAR and DOT each dipped roughly 2% on the news before diverging sharply in the following days Grayscale’s Bitcoin, Ethereum and several other altcoin ETF filings remain untouched Grayscale Investments filed Form RW withdrawals for its Cardano, Hedera and Polkadot trust ETFs on August 7, 2026, closing three applications that had effectively been dead since the fall of 2025. None of the three products had a realistic path forward once their exchange partners walked away months earlier, and this was Grayscale finally saying so on the record instead of leaving the filings open indefinitely. Two Exchanges Had Already Pulled the Listing Proposals A spot ETF needs two separate approvals to launch. The issuer files an S-1 covering the fund itself, and the exchange that wants to list it files a 19b-4 seeking permission to do so. Grayscale submitted its Cardano and Polkadot S-1s on August 29, 2025, and Hedera’s on September 9, 2025. The exchanges backed out almost immediately after. NYSE Arca pulled the Cardano 19b-4 on September 29, 2025, barely a month after the S-1 went in, and Nasdaq withdrew both the Polkadot and Hedera proposals on November 3, 2025. From that point on, the S-1s were registrations with no listing venue attached to them, technically alive on EDGAR but functionally closed for business. SEC filings show Grayscale used Rule 477 of the Securities Act of 1933to file the withdrawals, and the filings stated the sponsor did not intend to proceed with distributing the trust’s shares. The SEC never rejected any of the three applications. Grayscale confirmed no shares were ever issued and no preliminary prospectus reached the public at any stage, meaning the exit carries no investor exposure and no regulatory black mark. Bitcoin and Ethereum Still Absorb Nearly All the Money The withdrawal fits a pattern that has become harder to ignore through the middle of 2026. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs still dominate the category by assets under management, with Bitcoin products holding roughly $76 billion against Ethereum’s $9.7 billion, but the flow story below them has split cleanly in two. On August 7, the same day Grayscale filed its withdrawals, spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in about $102 million and Ethereum ETFs added roughly $50 million, while Solana and XRP ETFs recorded flat flows for the day. That gap is not new. Earlier in the year, XRP ETFs had attracted close to $1.5 billion since their November 2025 launch and Solana ETFs had drawn over $1.1 billion, figures that sound substantial until set against Bitcoin’s tens of billions in cumulative inflows.