On August 3, Brazilian crypto asset manager Hashdex filed with the U.S. SEC to close and liquidate its U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF (NYSE Arca: DEFI). Trading will cease and the fund will be delisted after the close on August 17, with proceeds from the sale of Bitcoin expected to be distributed to shareholders around August 28. As of July 30, the fund had only $14.7 million in assets and held 225 Bitcoin, making it the first U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF to enter liquidation since the first batch launched in January 2024. During the same period, BlackRock’s IBIT had assets under management of $47.08 billion—over 3,200 times larger.
(Prior context: Trump withdraws Bitcoin ETF application from Truth Social; analysts: market is already a red ocean with little room for profit)
(Background supplement: Bitcoin exchange inflows below 24% annual average! No selling pressure, and buying has dried up.)
On August 3, Brazilian crypto asset manager Hashdex announced in an SEC filing the closure and liquidation of its Hashdex Bitcoin ETF (NYSE Arca: DEFI), the only fund under the Hashdex Commodities Trust, which had assets of approximately $14.7 million as of July 30.
The schedule is fixed. Shareholders can sell their shares on NYSE Arca before the market close on August 17. On the same day, the fund will stop accepting purchase orders from authorized participants (APs), the market makers responsible for ETF subscriptions and redemptions, followed by delisting. Shareholders who hold until the last moment are expected to receive cash around August 28.
Hashdex listed reasons in its announcement, including asset size, trading liquidity, operational costs, investor interest, and the fund’s position within its own index product lineup. The company also emphasized that it continues to manage over $200 million in other products in the U.S. market.
What fewer people notice is the final reminder in the official announcement: the allocated amount equals the net asset value on the liquidation date and will reflect closure costs, transaction fees, and price fluctuations during the fund’s sale of Bitcoin. Hashdex explicitly states, “These fluctuations may be significant.” This means the amount investors receive depends entirely on market conditions during the days when these 225 Bitcoin are sold—no one can guarantee the outcome.
225 bitcoins are not enough to support an ETF.
The final holding of DEFI is 225 bitcoins, with a net value of approximately $14.25 million and 200,000 shares outstanding. This figure is nearly invisible when placed among the rankings of U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs.
BlackRock’s IBIT has a scale of $47.08 billion, while the entire U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF market is approximately $77.6 billion. The second-smallest, WisdomTree BTCW, has $142.4 million—nearly ten times that of DEFI. DEFI is not only the smallest, but also significantly smaller than the second-smallest.
As scale doesn't increase, costs remain fixed—the administrative, custody, audit, and compliance expenses of listing on NYSE Arca don't decrease just because the fund is small. This is also why industry insiders say it's hard for crypto products that fail to raise over $100 million to sustain themselves. DEFI's expense ratio is 0.90%, translating to roughly $130,000 in annual revenue, an amount insufficient even to hire a dedicated team.
More importantly, DeFi never really took off. The fund's recorded peak size occurred on May 9, 2025, at approximately $17.54 million. It didn’t fall from a high—it stayed on the same flat line until the company decided to quit.
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