ETF Edge - Bitcoin death-cross, Ethereum persistence & Solana pop 11/17/25

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

While bitcoin hits a technical “death-cross”, Tom Lee is still bullish on #2 crypto Ethereum. Plus, Bitwise wins big after a Solana regulatory end-run.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The ETF Edge podcast is sponsored by InvescoQQQ. Let's rethink possibility. Investco Distributors, Inc. Welcome to ETF Edge, the podcast. If you're looking to learn the latest insights on all things, exchange-traded funds, you're in the right place. Every week, we're bringing you compelling interviews, thoughtful market analysis, and breaking down what it all means for investors.

I'm Leslie Picker. While Bitcoin and Ethereum hit bearish technical levels and multi-week lows, a new Solana ETF product, debuted with a boom. Here's my conversation with Thomas Lee, Fundstraat Global Advisors Managing Partner, head of research, and CNBC contributor, along with Matt Hogan, CIO at BidWise Asset Management.

So let's just start broadly with your kind of high-level view here. What do you think is really going on? Tom, let's start with you first. Well, Leslie, I think the markets are a bit nervous in crypto-land inequity world, because one, we've had a government shutdown. And then there's been doubts about AI valuations and people raising questions about that. So AI stocks have corrected and many growth stocks have corrected.

And then in crypto specifically, it's been dealing with two issues. One is there was this big liquidation event on October 10th, one that really was a larger liquidation event than anything seen in history. And the second is because crypto is risk on, I think markets are really struggling with what the Fed's going to signal on December. Because, you know, if you end up with a hakish vet, it gets crypto investors very nervous. I think that's all creating this downside pressure. But I think the good news is there are signs of exhaustion. I did speak with Tom DeMarc of DeMarc analytics. And, you know, he thinks there are signs that would look like a bottom that could be occurring sometime this week.

Matt, do you agree with Tom here? I actually do exactly agree with Tom. I think we're nearing a bottom. I look at this as a great buying opportunity for long-term investors. You know, Bitcoin was the first thing to turn over before this broader market pullback. It was sort of the canary and the coal mine signaling that there was some risk in all sorts of risk on assets. I think it will be the first thing to bottom. And I agree with Tom.

We're getting very close to that point. So I think it's an exciting opportunity again for people who are looking out a year or more into the future. Tom, I'm kind of digging into Ethereum a bit more. What do you think are some of the idiosyncratic drivers here? Are there things that you think may be due for more of a decoupling from just the broader risk environment or crypto as well? Well, you know, Ethereum is a smart contract platform. So it differs from Bitcoin, which is a store value, and in many ways, it's virtue is that it's inert, you know, and it represents digital gold and a good store value. Ethereum, on the other hand, is because it's a smart contract platform is really the rails where I think a lot of things are going to be built.

And one of the big breakouts this year has been stable coins, but it's also been things like prediction markets. and now talk about tokenizing more than just dollars, but equities and real estate and alternative assets and other assets. And a lot of that will be built on Ethereum or layer two. So I think from a perspective of what the ecosystem looks like, Ethereum is a place where there's a lot of activity taking place, and you can measure it by transaction volumes or transactions per second or even value locked on the chain. And these are all rising. So to us, I think it's a story that still is in the earliest stages and one of the reasons we consider it a super cycle. And Matt, you agreed. You said that you agree with Tom that it's nearing a bottom.

How much of a long-term buy do you think this is? I think it's a generational opportunity for long-term investors, whether you're looking at Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana. To double down on what Tom said about Ethereum specifically, look, I think investors are very nervous. broadly about the economy, about AI valuations, about tariffs, about the broad economy, you want to look for secular trends that are decoupled from that. I think regardless of what happens on the economy in the next year, stable coins will grow tremendously. I think regardless of what happens, tokenization will, you know, maybe 10x in the next few years, prediction markets are going to be huge. Decentralized identity and digital identity are going to be huge.

Ethereum lets you play those secular trends, which are in this enormous growth phase, almost regardless of what's happening in the broader economy. So for me, it's really a generational opportunity. And to get in at these prices, I think really is almost a gift for long-term investors. It's a tremendous opportunity. Tom, in terms of just the overall volatility, what are some of the near-term headwinds you're expecting Ethereum to face? Well, one of them is the industry did suffer a big liquidation.

event that I think crippled many players and wiped out many accounts. So I think that this just like in 2022 or in 2020, it does take a few weeks for the industry to sort of find its footing. And I think that's why crypto prices have lagged here. And it does have the signs of that maybe a market maker or two actually is unable to provide market liquidity. And as you know, as liquidity contracts, it's the same thing as the central bank tightening. So it's almost like crypto QT.

I think the other thing the markets are grappling with is people talking about the four-year cycle. Many are convinced that Bitcoin prices have peaked. So in some ways, Bitcoin being the blue chip and the bellwether is important for crypto, because if Bitcoin makes a new high this year, then it really obviates the fact that there is a four-year cycle. And so it's, you know, to me, between now and your end, you know, I'm pretty bullish on stocks. This sort of weakness in the first half of November was what we expected. But as markets rally, I think that's going to help propel Bitcoin to an all-time high. Yeah, and to your point about liquidity, too.

Matt, switching to another crypto, you recently launched the LANA ETF, attracted $420 million in its first week, according to LSEG data. But you took a slightly different path to market to be the first mover in that area. Can you explain your process? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in short, you know, the government was shut down, but just because the government can't get its act together and move forward doesn't mean that ETF issuers have to stop what they're doing as well. So because we were far along in the process of developing that ETF, we were able to, you know, effectively go auto-effective after removing a piece of wording in the prospectus. That let us launch despite the government shutdown.

It became one of the most successful ETF launches of all time. you know, B-Soul is the ticker, as you mentioned, almost half a billion dollars of inflows. And I think it speaks to the incentive and pace of innovation in this ETF crypto ecosystem. There's a huge demand for high-quality crypto-etefs. If you can be first-to-market, you know, investors will respond to that. And we've seen that with BitWise and B-Sol. We saw it last week with Canary with their XRP ETF. There are a few more that are coming down that pipeline.

So it was really just not letting the government shut down, slow us down at B-Solol. was. Yeah, certainly a scarcity element perhaps as well at play with a very few ETF launches and then being able to obtain all those inflows. Now obviously the government is reopened, at least temporarily. Tom, what are your thoughts on the current regulatory environment for crypto? Do you feel like 2025 saw a real watershed moment? Oh, absolutely. The regulatory environment for crypto has gone from one where the previous regime was essentially extinguish any activity related to crypto. And if any entity was involved or even touched anything in crypto, you could be sanctioned to one where experimentation and innovation are being encouraged by this administration.

So I do think it's actually the right regime that's in place because as you know, the race that's taking place over the future for any country is not only innovating on digital finance, right, moving money digitally, but it's really also taking the leadership in AI. And in so many ways, especially in an agentic world, crypto and AI actually are going to be working side by side. So I think leadership for crypto and AI are part of any nation's leadership. Matt, how do you see crypto ETFs evolving in 2026? It's going to be ETF Paloosa in Crypto Land. I think there'll be 100 plus launches. We're going to see a lot of single asset crypto ETPs. What I'm most excited about, though, is the growth of index-based crypto

ETPs. If you think of who is the next buyer of crypto, it's someone who, for whom crypto is a small part of their portfolio. They don't necessarily have an opinion on Ethereum versus Solana or Bitcoin versus another asset. They just want to bri a broad swath of the crypto market and hold it for the long term. So I'm excited about launches like Solana and XRP. There are a few. few more that I think will be really great. I think Chainlink will be an amazing launch. There are others coming down the pipe. But index ETPs, I think, will be one of the biggest stories of next year in crypto. And I think ultimately will be one of the biggest categories by which people invest. Of course, Bitwise has been running index funds for eight years. So I'm speaking my book here.

But I do think it's how the dominant way most people will want to invest is just owning a basket of these assets and betting that in the future, this industry will be 10 times bigger than it is today. Wow. Well, yeah, well, 100 new launches next year is no small number. Tom, we can't let you go without asking about granny shots at ETF recently celebrating its one-year anniversary gathering $3.6 billion in assets in its first year. You plan to expand the lineup. How do you plan to do so, and where else on the court will you be shooting from, so to speak? Yeah, well, that's right. Granny shots, which refers to a way of shooting free throws, proved to be very popular with investors, as you point out. And part of it is the performance, Granny Shots in its first year outperformed

the broader index by a thousand basis points and year-to-date beating the S&P by more than a thousand basis points. The idea of Granny Shots is the idea that there are super cycles, themes that last for more than five to ten years, and we want to buy the strongest stocks. So we are expanding the Granny Schatz family that they're going to go effective tomorrow. One is a mid-cap granny. So this is taking the same Granny model, finding the seven super cycle themes, but buying small and mid-cap stocks. It's going to hold more names, maybe 40 to 50 names versus 30 for Granny.

And this is going to be a good way for investors to get additional grant exposure in small and mid. And the second is an income-oriented Granny Shots product. So this is going to be using the same granny shots model, but also generating income. So the tickers are GRNJ for small midcap and GRNI for the granny income. That does it for ETF Edge, the podcast. Thanks for listening. Join us again next week or head to etfedge.c.com. Are you an Invesco-QQQQQETF shareholder?

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