21Shares Lighter and Venice crypto ETPs represented by digital tokens against a European financial market background in olive green, light green, and black.

21Shares Launches Lighter and Venice Crypto ETPs in Europe

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Key Insights

  • Traditional brokerage access is expanding. Investors can access emerging crypto sectors without directly managing digital assets.
  • There are differing token supply policies. The lower issuance and buyback mechanisms affect the economics of Venice but not necessarily its appreciation.
  • There’s a price to product convenience. Both ETPs make it easy to access and offer similar exposure to the price of the token and annual management fees.

On October 20, 21Shares crypto ETPs opened up new opportunities for decentralized trading and privacy-focused artificial intelligence for European investors. The asset manager has launched two physically-backed products on Deutsche Börse Xetra and SIX Swiss Exchange, with annual fees of 2.50%. The launches enable the investors to receive the Lighter’s LIT token and Venice Token’s VVV tokens in regular brokerage accounts.

Products focus on discrete cryptocurrency segments, but share the same investment format. Investors can buy and sell without having to open a separate investment account on any crypto exchange or take control of private keys. But they are still susceptible to price fluctuations in the underlying tokens and the expenses of keeping shares.

Lighter ETP Opens Access Through Xetra

The 21Shares Lighter ETP trades under the ticker LIHT on Deutsche Börse Xetra. The product follows LIT, the token of Lighter, a decentralized exchange that focuses on perpetual futures.

The platform lets people trade derivatives in cryptocurrencies, foreign exchange, equities and commodities. According to 21Shares, Lighter uses zero‑knowledge technology to make order matching and liquidations verifiable.

Moreover the issuer says the platform sends revenue back, to buying LIT and burning tokens. These mechanisms connect platform activity with efforts to reduce the token’s circulating supply.

Deutsche Börse records October 20 as LIHT’s first trading day. Its listings also identify a dollar-denominated trading line under LIHU, alongside the euro-denominated LIHT line.

Both securities share ISIN CH1615641755. The exchange classifies the instrument as a crypto exchange-traded note, or ETN, rather than a fund holding tokens directly for shareholders.

Consequently, investors receive exposure through a listed security instead of controlling LIT in personal wallets.

Venice ETP targets privacy-focused AI

The 21Shares Venice Token ETP trades under VENC on Switzerland’s SIX Swiss Exchange. It tracks VVV, the token linked to Venice an intelligence platform focused on user privacy.

Venice provides AI inference services that help keep data safe by reducing the need to store or expose information. It also offers an API that works with the OpenAI API allowing developers to include Venice’s services, in their applications.

Jasmin Muelhaupt, 21Shares’ head of financial product development, highlighted the different markets behind the launches. She linked Lighter to decentralized derivatives trading and Venice to private AI infrastructure.

Meanwhile, 21Shares identifies Anchorage Digital Bank and BitGo as custodians for VENC. Flow Traders and Virtu Financial Ireland serve as authorized participants and market makers.

The issuer’s product page records an October 19 inception date, 65,000 securities outstanding and an initial net asset value of $20 per security. Those figures imply an initial product size of $1.3 million, not a confirmed measure of subsequent investor demand.

Token economics shape investor exposure

The new 21Shares crypto ETPs provide market access, but their underlying tokens carry different economic characteristics. Lighter connects its token to a derivatives trading platform, while Venice links VVV to an AI service.

According to the research reports from 21Shares, the annual volume of VVV tokens issued by Venice has been cut from 14 million to 14.5 million tokens at its launch in January 2025. The annual rate dropped to 2 million tokens on October 1, 2026, which is about 86% less.

Additionally, Venice directs portions of subscription revenue and API credit purchases toward token buybacks and burns. However, 21Shares says recurring burns remain below issuance.

VVV holders also receive neither company equity nor governance rights simply by owning the token.Thus, it is not a rule that less is better, as far as prices are concerned, or investment returns.

Investors need to keep in mind the following factors when investing:

  • Annual fees—Both products carry a 2.50% annual fee which decreases returns over time.
  • Custody agreements—investors do not own the tokens, but rather purchase listed securities that represent the underlying tokens.
  • Market exposure—Volatility of the token prices is still a factor in each products’ performance.

European listings broaden traditional access

The October launches extend 21Shares’ European product range beyond established cryptocurrency assets. In September, the company introduced Zcash and ether.fi ETPs, which also carry annual fees of 2.50%.

In addition, 21Shares previously announced an ETP in September of 2025. The new listings expand the access to decentralized finance and AI-related tokens with established securities markets.

Distribution partnerships have also opened up access to Europe. In February, ING Germany launched trading of cryptocurrency ETPs for retail brokerage clients, among its partners being 21Shares.

However, there is no evidence of any sustained demand or liquidity in exchange listings. Before making an investment decision, investors should take into account the costs of trading, volatility of tokens and the structure of each product.

The issuer’s regulatory disclosure also states that the securities are not being publicly offered in the United States.

Conclusion

21Shares has added two specialized crypto products to Europe’s listed investment market. LIHT provides exposure to decentralized derivatives trading, while VENC targets privacy-focused AI infrastructure. Both products let you access markets through a broker. The 2.50% yearly fee and the risks tied to the tokens they use are still important things to think about.

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