Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley said the failure of the company’s spot Dogecoin ETF was "tragic," arguing that it exposed a gap between the users served by spot ETFs and those served by crypto brokerage apps.
Horsley made the remarks in an interview with The Block at Digital Asset Summit 2026 Asia.
BWOW to stop trading after Oct. 14
Bitwise’s Dogecoin ETF, trading under the ticker BWOW, listed on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2025. It is now set to close less than a year after launch, with trading scheduled to stop after Oct. 14.
According to data from SoSoValue, the fund had about $725,900 in assets under management as of Oct. 7. Its trading volume in September was $51,500.
Horsley says he owns DOGE, but the ETF never gained traction
Horsley said he likes Dogecoin and owns it himself. He described it as, at least historically, a useless token, but said it represents something and is therefore a reasonable asset. Even so, he said the ETF format did not work for it.
In his view, ETF investors do not want to put money into Dogecoin, though he said that could change over time. He also rejected the idea that Bitwise had chosen the wrong audience, describing crypto ETFs as a channel.
BSOL drew a more positive assessment
By contrast, Horsley was more upbeat about the performance of Bitwise’s Solana staking ETF, BSOL. He said the product’s first-of-its-kind staking feature helped drive its success, but added that the fund’s $1.3 billion in net assets is, in the end, a bet on Solana.
AI is now a priority for Bitwise
Horsley also said artificial intelligence is one of Bitwise’s current priorities. He said crypto and AI come from the same source: one rebuilds financial services as software, while the other enables machines to do work that was previously done by people.