Bitwise Plants Its Flag In ETF Staking With Chorus One Buyout

Crypto asset manager Bitwise just made one of its boldest moves yet. The company has acquired Chorus One, a staking infrastructure firm that manages more than $2.2 billion in assets across dozens of blockchain networks. The deal brings 50 Chorus One employees into Bitwise’s growing onchain division, where several billion dollars in crypto assets are already being staked by clients.

Financial Terms Undisclosed

Chorus One has been in the staking business since 2018. Over those years, it built a client base that includes family offices, large funds, exchanges, high-net-worth individuals, and custodians — the kind of institutional relationships that take years to earn. Its founder and CEO, Brian Crain, will stay on in an advisory role as the rest of the team folds into Bitwise Onchain Solutions.

Reports say the financial terms of the deal were not made public. Bitwise did not disclose how much it paid.

What is clear, though, is what the company gets out of it. The acquisition extends Bitwise’s staking reach across more than 30 proof-of-stake networks — among them Solana, Avalanche, Sui, Aptos, Hyperliquid, Monad, and Tezos. That is a wide net, and it signals the company is not thinking just about Ethereum.

Staking, for those unfamiliar, works like this: holders of certain crypto tokens lock them up on a blockchain to help keep the network running. In return, they earn rewards — typically somewhere between 2% and 10% a year, on top of any gains from the token itself.

Why The Timing Matters

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has been warming up to a wider range of crypto investment products. That shift has opened the door for new types of exchange-traded funds, including ones that could one day offer staking rewards to ordinary investors. Bitwise appears to be positioning itself for exactly that possibility.

Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley described staking as “one of the most compelling growth opportunities” the firm sees for its clients. The company already runs more than 40 investment products and oversees roughly $15 billion in assets under management. Its flagship offerings include the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF and the Bitwise Ethereum ETF, which have pulled in over $2 billion and $387 million in flows respectively since launching in 2024.

With nearly 200 employees now spread across the world, Bitwise has been steadily building out beyond its core ETF lineup. Reports note that its other products include ETFs tied to Solana, XRP, Chainlink, and even Dogecoin. The Chorus One deal adds staking muscle to that already broad product shelf.

Featured image from Gemini, chart from TradingView