Bitwise CEO says ‘tragic’ Dogecoin ETF failure shows gap between ETF buyers and crypto-app users
The "tragic" failure of Bitwise's spot Dogecoin exchange-traded fund highlighted the gap between different audiences, its CEO Hunter Horsley said during an interview with The Block at Digital Asset Summit 2026 Asia.The Bitwise Dogecoin ETF (BWOW) launched on the NYSE in November 2025, but is closing less than a year after listing, with trading set to end after Oct. 14. According to SoSoValue data, the fund had total assets under management of around $725,870 as of Oct. 7, and had a monthly volume of $51,480 in September."I like Dogecoin, I own Dogecoin," Horsley said. "I think it's authentic to what it is; it's a useless token, at least historically, but it stands for something, and I think that's a reasonable asset, but it went nowhere as an ETF."The Bitwise CEO said BWOW's failure indicates a "delta" between the users that spot ETFs serve and those that crypto brokerage apps serve."The users of ETFs just didn't want to put money into Dogecoin, but that may change over time," Horsley told The Block, while rejecting the idea that Bitwise had targeted the wrong audience and describing crypto ETFs as a conduit.Horsley was more definite about the success of Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL). The CEO said its staking feature, which was the first of its kind, helped with its success, but ultimately the $1.3 billion in net assets were a bet on Solana. Buyers see tokenization, stablecoins and vaults moving onchain and treat Solana as a beneficiary of those movements, Horsley said."Our job is to continue to work hard to figure out what are the opportunities investors want to participate in, and to build useful products there," Horsley said.AI focusOne of Bitwise's current focuses lies in AI. Horsley said crypto and AI are "cut from the same cloth," as one rebuilds financial services as software, while the other lets a machine do tasks a person used to do. When AI advances, he said, its preferred financial system will be "not a bank teller standing behind a pane of glass, but a smart contract available in milliseconds."Just last week, the company launched Bitwise NEAR ETF (NRR), which is the first spot fund tracking NEAR Protocol's native cryptocurrency. One of the protocol's main features is NEAR Intents, which allows a user or an AI agent to swap and send assets across chains without moving the coins through a bridge themselves."It has been growing, and I think investors can take the view that as agents are given more financial abilities, that it will grow even more," said Horsley. While he said NRR's outperformance could reflect several factors, Horsley agreed that growing interest in the intersection of crypto and AI is among them.The Bitwise CEO said the company plans to do more around AI. Public filings show that the firm filed two AI-related ETF applications — one for the Bitwise AI Cyber Defense ETF in August, and the Bitwise AI Bond ETF in September.When asked what investment he would recommend to an investor with a five-year horizon, Horsley named two of the firm's index funds — the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index ETF (BITW) and the Bitwise Crypto Industry Innovators ETF (BITQ)."I like them because the lesson that I've learned over the last several years is that things change," Horsley told The Block. "I think that those two are solutions so investors don't have to decide how it's gonna play out. BITW today does hold Hyperliquid, Zcash, and Uniswap, and if that changes in the future, it'll stop holding."