Bitwise has registered a Delaware statutory belief for a doable Uniswap-linked alternate-traded fund, in step with a say file filed Tuesday.
The circulation establishes an entity below the “Bitwise Uniswap ETF” establish, positioning the firm to pursue an ETF tied to the decentralized finance protocol will hang to peaceful it later envisage to advance a federal submitting.
Such say-stage registrations are on the total made months upfront of any SEC submission, and heaps assemble not growth past that stage.
The registration is a “placeholder step that preserves optionality” for Bitwise and suggests it is “positioning ahead” without implying “an active SEC evaluate or an outlined birth timeline,” Vincent Liu, chief funding officer at Kronos Research, steered Decrypt.
The circulation follows the SEC’s decision in February 2025 to close its investigation into Uniswap Labs, ending a probe that examined whether task tied to the protocol violated U.S. securities legal guidelines.
The case had fashioned fragment of the agency’s earlier enforcement push into decentralized finance, which targeted on whether initiatives described as decentralized peaceful relied on identifiable operators self-discipline to federal oversight.
Since President Donald Trump took office for a second time duration, the SEC has pulled motivate from as a minimum 17 major enforcement cases brought in opposition to crypto companies and initiatives.
Now, analysts articulate consideration has shifted to construction, liquidity, and execution.
Bitwise’s registration “strategically bridges the regulatory clarity from the closed SEC investigation with a intellectual ETF birth,” Ryan Yoon, senior examine analyst at Tiger Research, steered Decrypt.
“Whereas ethical uncertainties hang subsided, the approval process will now point of curiosity on verifying the protocol’s decentralization and true liquidity,” Yoon said, adding that Bitwise’s most up-to-date circulation “would be minute” by methodology of market influence.
The kind of situation could well well create “the stable implementation of revenue-sharing policies take care of the Price Swap a more pressing precedence for designate accrual,” he added, referring to a governance mechanism that redirects a share of buying and selling charges from liquidity companies to the protocol.
The mechanism turned into once proposed in November and popular with a majority vote a month later.
Up to now, Uniswap “shows unparalleled on-chain liquidity, even supposing fragmented volumes and decentralized governance present challenges for pricing and oversight,” Kronos Research’s Liu said.
If Bitwise proceeds with its Uniswap ETF, elements equivalent to custody would be key, he outlined.
“Custody depends on neat contracts, heightening operational risk. These elements would be central for SEC evaluate of any ETF exposure,” he said.
A evaluate from the SEC would ogle into Uniswap’s “market integrity, manipulation risk, and the depth of on-protocol liquidity, along side reliance on surveilled markets,” he illustrious.
Uniswap’s UNI token has posted $161 million in 24-hour buying and selling volume, in step with CoinGecko info. The protocol’s decentralized alternate platform processed roughly $859 million over the same duration.
