Grayscale’s first US spot exchange-traded fund tied to Chainlink opened with solid demand, adding another data point to the debate over whether appetite for altcoins can survive a cooling crypto market.
Key Takeaways:
Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas says the Chainlink ETF opened with $41M in inflows and $13M in volume. The debut beat Solana’s launch, but trailed XRP’s $243M Day-1 inflow reported by SosoValue. ETF analyst James Seyffart cautioned it wasn’t a blockbuster.Despite a pullback across major tokens in recent weeks, the new fund attracted sizable capital on its first trading day.
Chainlink ETF Debut Draws $41M, Signaling Demand for Regulated Altcoins
According to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, the product ended its debut session with $41 million in net inflows and about $13 million in trading volume.
The figures placed Chainlink among the stronger ETF launches this year and suggested that, at least for some investors, regulated vehicles remain the preferred route into higher-risk digital assets.
The showing stands well above the opening day for the Solana ETF, which recorded just $8.2 million in volume based on data from Farside Investors.
Still, the XRP ETF remains the category’s heavyweight, registering $243 million in first-day inflows, according to SosoValue.
Even so, analysts urged restraint. James Seyffart said the launch was not a “blockbuster,” though he noted that the fund quickly reached about $64 million in assets under management, including an $18 million seed allocation.
“Chainlink shows that less liquid products can still attract attention in an ETF wrapper,” he wrote, pointing to the role exchange-traded funds can play in widening market access.
For Chainlink itself, the debut offered little immediate relief. The LINK token is up nearly 10% over the past week but remains down more than 39% over the past year, according to price data cited by Cointelegraph.
Chainlink’s appeal lies in its infrastructure role. The network supplies on-chain applications with external data, enabling price feeds, cross-chain transfers and tokenized assets to function reliably.
As demand for decentralized finance and real-world asset tokenization grows, investors appear willing to give even second-tier tokens a closer look.
New Altcoin ETFs Steal Spotlight as Bitcoin Funds Struggle
The new Chainlink ETF comes amid the rollout of a wave of new altcoin ETFs.
Over the past month, issuers have launched products tied to Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin, with more XRP and Dogecoin funds set to list next week.
The Canary Capital XRP ETF (XRPC) debuted with $58 million in net inflows, the highest opening-day haul for any ETF this year, edging out the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL), which launched with $57 million.
BSOL has quickly become one of the early success stories of 2025, accumulating over $660 million in assets within three weeks and avoiding a single day of outflows.
As reported, the New York Stock Exchange has approved the listing of Grayscale’s XRP and Dogecoin exchange-traded funds, clearing both products to begin trading on Monday.
NYSE Arca, the exchange’s ETF-focused subsidiary, filed certifications on Friday confirming the listing and registration of the Grayscale XRP Trust ETF Shares and the Grayscale Dogecoin Trust ETF Shares under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Bitwise Asset Management has also unveiled the Bitwise Dogecoin ETF as investor appetite for altcoin exposure continues to increase.
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