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
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.
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.
Yahoo Finance and CryptoSlate both reported that 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.
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. Newer, smaller-cap altcoin products, the category Cardano, Hedera and Polkadot ETFs would have fallen into, have consistently struggled to generate the daily participation that keeps a fund economically worth running for an issuer. Grayscale pruning three filings that never reached the exchange-listing stage reads less like a retreat from crypto and more like an acknowledgment of where investor demand has actually concentrated.
Cardano holds above its rising trendline near $0.196. Source: Alexander Stefanov, TradingView. ADA dropped about 2% to $0.196 in the immediate reaction, then recovered to $0.1967 by August 10, up close to 8% over the trailing week. The daily chart shows why the dip barely registered with traders. Price has been holding a rising trendline since its June low near $0.14 and now sits above both its 20-day and 50-day moving averages, with the 14-day RSI at 63.29, a reading above the neutral 50 mark that signals buyers are in control without the asset yet being overbought above 70.
The withdrawal also landed two days before CME’s regulated Cardano futures market completed six months of trading on August 9. That distinction matters because both Bitcoin and Ethereum had established, seasoned CME futures markets running well before their spot ETFs won approval, a track record the SEC has treated as evidence that a regulated derivatives market exists to help with pricing and custody oversight. Cardano crossing that same six-month threshold right as Grayscale abandoned its spot ETF bid is the detail analysts on TradingView have focused on, since it suggests the timing was a deliberate cleanup ahead of a milestone rather than a coincidence tied to the calendar.
Polkadot trades below its 20-day and 50-day moving averages near $0.808. Source: Alexander Stefnaov, TradingView. DOT fell nearly 2% to around $0.805 before settling near $0.8081. Unlike ADA, Polkadot’s chart hasn’t shaken off its broader slide. Price remains below both the 20-day moving average at $0.804 and the 50-day at $0.833, and RSI sits at a flat 46.80, a reading close to the 50 midpoint that signals neither buyers nor sellers currently have the upper hand. The token has spent since June inside the lower half of its Fibonacci retracement range, moving between the 0.236 and 0.382 levels without a clear breakout in either direction, and the ETF withdrawal didn’t shift that structure.
Hedera extends its downtrend from May’s $0.10 peak to $0.0687. Source: Alexander Stefanov, TradingView. HBAR slipped 2.24% to $0.068 on the news and traded at $0.06872 on the daily chart as of August 10. The longer view puts that move in context. HBAR peaked near $0.10 in late May, and has been in a steady downtrend since, now sitting below both its 20-day moving average at $0.06943 and its 50-day at $0.07027. RSI at 46.31 shows the token stuck in a narrow, indecisive range roughly between $0.068 and $0.075 for most of July and into August, with no signal in the chart that the ETF news changed the underlying trajectory in either direction.
Grayscale’s foundational Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs are untouched by any of this, and the firm still maintains active or preliminary filings tracked for Bittensor, Aave, BNB, Near Protocol, Zcash, Avalanche and Hyperliquid, according to updates on Binance Square. Because these were voluntary Form RW withdrawals rather than SEC denials, Grayscale keeps a clean record on Cardano, Hedera and Polkadot and could refile fresh S-1 and 19b-4 applications for any of the three later. Whether that happens likely depends less on regulatory posture, which has generally moved toward faster listing standards through 2026, and more on whether flow data for smaller-cap altcoin ETFs starts looking like XRP’s or Solana’s rather than the flat participation numbers newer, thinner-cap products have posted so far this year.
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