21Shares Sees Active Strategies Drive Crypto ETF Next Phase

The active crypto ETF wave is picking up real velocity — and 21Shares wants to be at the front of it. Duncan Moir, president of 21Shares, said this week that active management is increasingly central to where the crypto ETP market is heading, as investors move past simple buy-and-hold exposure and start demanding structures that actually do something with their capital.

Why Active Management Fits Crypto Right Now

Moir's case for active management in crypto isn't complicated: the asset class is young, inefficient, and full of dislocations that a skilled manager can exploit — at least in theory. He told reporters that crypto's nascent nature makes it particularly well-suited to strategies that go beyond passive index tracking, and that 21Shares has been building out accordingly.

The firm uses a combination of bottom-up research on individual assets alongside quantitative and discretionary top-down portfolio strategies. That dual approach is designed to manage risk while capturing upside — a pitch that sounds familiar to anyone who has followed the active equity ETF playbook over the past decade. To support it, 21Shares has been expanding both its portfolio management and trading teams, according to Moir.

The numbers behind the thesis are hard to dismiss. Active crypto ETF assets globally — across all categories, not just crypto — reached nearly $1.8 trillion by the end of 2025, according to data compiled by Morningstar and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. That figure represents a fundamental shift in how institutional allocators think about ETF wrappers: not as passive vehicles, but as actively managed portfolios with the liquidity benefits of exchange-listed products.

The integration with FalconX is part of the same story. 21Shares was acquired by FalconX in October 2025, and Moir said that partnership is expected to speed up product development — particularly as the firm ventures deeper into complex structures that require serious trading infrastructure behind them. FalconX's institutional crypto trading capabilities give 21Shares a backstop that pure ETP issuers often lack.

Europe Leads — How Does Regional Demand Break Down?

Regional demand for crypto ETPs is not uniform, and Moir was direct about it. European investors are ahead of the curve. The reason, he said, is straightforward: Europe has a more mature crypto allocator base — institutions that already hold Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) and are now actively looking to expand and diversify their crypto exposure rather than simply add more of what they already own.

That's a qualitatively different kind of demand than what you see in markets where institutions are still in the 'should we own Bitcoin at all?' phase. European allocators are past that. They want yield, they want thematic exposure, they want products that fit into a broader portfolio construction framework.

Which explains the Strategy STRC ETP launch. 21Shares recently brought a product to European markets linked to Strategy's preferred stock (STRC) — a high-yield instrument tied to the company's Bitcoin-focused capital strategy. Moir said the product has seen strong early demand across multiple regions, which he attributed to investors wanting yield-generating crypto exposure accessible through a standard brokerage account rather than through direct crypto custody.

The third is where we see trends going in the future. That can result in either niche, single-asset products or broader thematic offerings depending on conviction.

Staking ETFs and the Product Race Heating Up

21Shares is not operating in a vacuum. The broader crypto ETP market is evolving fast, and the race to add yield-generating features to exchange-listed products has accelerated significantly over the past six months.

Staking — where investors earn yield by locking up crypto assets to help secure proof-of-stake blockchain networks — has become the feature everyone wants to add. In October 2025, Grayscale introduced staking across its ETP suite, making its Ether funds the first US-listed spot crypto ETFs to offer staking rewards. It extended that feature to its Solana trust as well, pending approval for ETP conversion.

Then in March 2026, BlackRock launched a Nasdaq-listed Ethereum product incorporating staking — combining direct spot Ether exposure with on-chain yield generation. The fund recorded $15.5 million in trading volume on its first day.

For 21Shares, new product decisions run through three filters: internal research, client demand, and macro market trends. Moir described the firm's research team as identifying early-stage opportunities, with institutional client feedback helping gauge real-world interest before a launch. The Bitcoin-and-gold ETP is his go-to example of that framework working. Cross-listed in London recently, the product has been live for four years and has delivered some of the strongest risk-adjusted returns among European ETPs. The diversification case for holding both Bitcoin and gold in a single wrapper, Moir said, 'just makes total sense.' Four years of live data backs him up.