Dogecoin: Bitwise pays out in cash on 22 October, what it means for your coins

Next Thursday ends a story that began in January to considerable applause. On 22 October 2026 Bitwise pays out the last shareholders of its Dogecoin fund BWOW in cash. The net asset value of 21 October is what counts, and the security has not been tradable since 14 October. For the price of Dogecoin this has so far been a non-event: the coin stands at $0.0803 on Saturday midday, 2.5 percent below the previous day.

The wind-down is interesting for another reason: it lays bare how small the regulated fund market for Dogecoin has actually remained after a year of exchange trading. The two largest remaining US products together manage $22.5 million. That is 0.18 percent of Dogecoin's market capitalisation of $12.56 billion, and around 3.7 percent of what changes hands on exchanges in a single day.

The timetable up to 22 October

Bitwise announced the wind-down on 10 September, with immediate effect for the fund structure and a staggered schedule for investors. The notice names four dates, three of which have already passed.

Anyone still holding shares need do nothing. The payment runs through the custodian bank, with no application and no deadline. As its reason, Bitwise says in the mandatory notice only that the firm continuously optimises its product range to meet the changing needs of investors. No fund size appears in the notice. All it gives is the house figure: more than 70 products and $9 billion in client assets.

What is left of the US fund market for Dogecoin

After BWOW departs, three spot products remain on the market. Two of them publish their figures daily, and both sit at almost the same level.

Converting the two reported holdings into coins gives, at the current price, around 280 million Dogecoin. In circulation are 156 billion units. The regulated fund wrapper therefore holds roughly one Dogecoin in five hundred. For a sense of scale: the coin's turnover alone came to $612 million over the past 24 hours, 27 times the entire fund assets.

Why a small fund closes sooner than a large one

An exchange-traded fund carries costs that barely grow with its size. The custodian, the auditor, legal advice, the exchange listing fee and the market maker quoting prices every trading day cost almost the same at $10 million in assets as at $1 billion. Revenue, by contrast, comes solely from the management fee, and that is measured against assets.

What this means can be worked through on the two remaining funds. At 0.35 percent on $11.41 million, Grayscale takes in just under $40,000 a year. REX-Osprey charges 1.5 percent, more than four times as much, and arrives at around $167,000 even though its fund is slightly smaller. Both sums are enough for a niche product inside a large fund family, where custody and audit are spread across many funds. As a standalone business, neither pays its way.

Therein lies the reason why products of this size disappear quietly, long before anyone notices. It is not the price that decides this but the inflows. Bitwise waited ten months and then pulled the cord.

German investors were never on the distribution list

The wind-down of BWOW affects almost nobody in Germany, and there is a supervisory reason for that. US funds produce no key information document under the European PRIIPs regulation. Without that document a broker in the EU may not sell the security to retail clients. Anyone with a securities account in Germany could therefore not buy BWOW through the regular route at all, and the same applies to GDOG, DOJE and TDOG.

Access to Dogecoin in securities form runs in Germany through exchange-traded notes backed by real coins. Which products exist, what to look for in the issuer and the collateral, and how this differs from buying directly, is set out in our overview of crypto ETFs and ETPs in Germany. The second route remains buying the coin itself through a regulated crypto exchange, with self-custody or custody at the exchange.

Tax hangs on the wrapper, not on the coin

At this point the product question becomes a money question, and more sharply than with equities. A directly held Dogecoin is, for tax purposes, a different asset from a security that tracks the same coin.

For a direct holding, section 23 of the German Income Tax Act applies. A gain from a sale within one year counts as a private disposal transaction and is taxed at the personal rate, but stays outside the calculation up to the exemption limit of €1,000 per calendar year. Exceed that limit and the whole amount becomes taxable. After twelve months of holding, the gain is tax-free. That holding period was in the balance several times this autumn: the Bundestag rejected its abolition on 9 October by 445 votes to 132, the cabinet date passed without a decision, and the Federal Ministry of Finance is keeping its counsel. We track the current state continuously in our overview of the crypto holding period.

With a security the arithmetic looks different. There, flat-rate withholding tax of 25 percent applies in principle, plus the solidarity surcharge and church tax where applicable, withheld by the bank holding the account, with the €1,000 saver's allowance as a tax-free amount. Whether a physically backed crypto ETP nonetheless falls under section 23 in an individual case depends on how it is structured and whether it securitises a claim to delivery of the coins. No article answers that question across the board; the key information document of the particular product does, and a tax adviser in case of doubt. Anyone who has spread purchases across several platforms will find, in our comparison of crypto tax tools, the programs that track acquisition dates and holding periods automatically.

Three points count now: what form the holding takes, when it was acquired, and whether the supporting records are complete. The first two determine the type of tax, the third the burden of proof before the tax office.

The price this Saturday

Dogecoin trades at $0.0803 at midday on 17 October, the equivalent of €0.0715. Over the past 24 hours the range ran from $0.0793 to $0.0828, with a volume-weighted average of $0.0804. Over seven days it is down 6.9 percent, over thirty days down 1.5 percent. From the all-time high of $0.7316 the coin is 89 percent away.

The intraday low at $0.0793 sits close to the level at which the price steadied last week as well. On the upside it gets tight at $0.0828, the high of the current 24 hours. Both are daily marks and not trend lines; anyone looking at longer periods will take their bearings more from the February low, which we wrote about on 14 October when the price still stood at $0.0845. Dogecoin has given up a further 5 percent since then without either level breaking.

Our assessment of the retreat from the niche

From the editorial team's point of view, the closure of BWOW is not a signal against Dogecoin but one about the product landscape. The evidence: the coin ranks 12th by market capitalisation at $12.56 billion and turns over $612 million on a quiet Saturday. At the same time the four US funds together have not gathered even $25 million in ten months. The demand is there, then; it simply is not looking for a fund wrapper.

Against that stands an objection worth taking seriously: a market without institutional vehicles remains carried by retail investors and is therefore more prone to swings. At Bitcoin the ETF wave bundled demand that had not existed before. For Dogecoin that effect has so far failed to appear, and after Bitwise's retreat it has become less likely for this year. No price forecast follows from this. Any purchase of crypto assets can lead to a total loss.

BWOW wind-down: the money moves on 22 October, the coin stays

For Dogecoin held in German accounts and wallets, next Thursday changes nothing. What has changed is the position of everyone who had backed a regulated US product: of four funds three remain, and two of them together manage as much as the coin turns over in three and a half trading hours. Anyone sorting out their holdings anyway can take the week as an occasion to record the acquisition date and holding period for each position. By the turn of the year that determines the 2026 tax bill.

(As of October 17, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)