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Grayscale Investments has filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a spot Avalanche exchange-traded fund (ETF). The proposed Grayscale Avalanche Trust ETF would trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker “AVAX.”
Nasdaq Could Host Avalanche ETF if Grayscale’s Plan Clears SEC
The Form S-1 filing, submitted by Grayscale this week, details the setup of the Delaware statutory trust. Its sole function is to hold AVAX tokens, giving investors a way to track the asset’s price through a traditional securities product. The fund’s objective is for its share value to mirror the price of AVAX, minus expenses.
Grayscale’s AVAX prospectus explains that shares will be issued and redeemed in large blocks of 10,000, called baskets, by authorized participants. At first, these creations and redemptions will be done in cash. The filing adds that while the SEC has allowed in-kind creations for other crypto ETPs, it is uncertain if or when Nasdaq will push for a rule change to allow the same method here.
The trust is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, meaning it does not carry the same safeguards as mutual funds. Grayscale also maintains the trust is not a commodity pool, placing it outside the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) direct reach.
AVAX ranks as the 17th largest crypto by market capitalization, worth $10.26 billion as of Aug. 25, 2025. It has gained 2.9% this week but is down 2% over the past 30 days. Even so, AVAX remains more than 83% below its November 2021 record of nearly $145 per coin. Recently, AVA Labs collaborated with Toyota on a blockchain white paper. Approval of the registration hinges on the SEC also granting Nasdaq’s 19b-4 application to list the shares, a step that carries no guarantee.
This effort reflects Grayscale’s broader push to convert its single-asset cryptocurrency trusts into ETFs, a strategy that followed the 2024 conversions of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE). This year, the firm has also filed for multiple spot crypto ETFs tied to other alternative digital assets.