Bitcoin ETFs

• Direct bitcoin. All six trusts hold bitcoin in custody, not futures and not mining stocks.
• Cost range. Expense ratios run from 0.20% to 1.50%, which is $1300 a year on $100,000.
• One asset, six prices. The fees are 0.25% (IBIT, FBTC), 0.21% (ARKB), 0.20% (BITB, HODL) and 1.50% (GBTC).
• No income. Bitcoin pays nothing, so none of the trusts has a yield.
• Not a registered fund. These trusts are not investment companies under the 1940 Act, so read each prospectus.
• Large swings. IBIT shows a year-to-date NAV return of -14.57% at Nov 9, 2026 and a one-year return of -26.80% to Sep 30, 2026.

Figures come from each issuer page, with the date shown beside each number because the issuers update on different days. Bitcoin per share is the issuer figure for FBTC, GBTC and HODL and is computed from NAV and a bitcoin price for IBIT, ARKB and BITB. Custodians the issuer page did not list are marked Not captured.

Each of these six funds is a trust that owns bitcoin. The coins are held by a custodian, and a share is a claim on a small slice of them. One share of FBTC is backed by about 0.000870 bitcoin and one share of HODL by about 0.000283, which is why their share prices differ even though the asset is the same.

These trusts do not hold futures contracts, so there is no roll cost of the kind that affects the broad commodity ETFs. They also do not hold bitcoin mining or exchange stocks, so they carry no business risk from a single company. The return is the change in the bitcoin price, less the fee.

The fee is paid by selling a little bitcoin. Because of that, the bitcoin behind each share falls slowly every year, by about the expense ratio. Over a decade a 0.25% fee uses up roughly 2.5% of the coins and a 1.50% fee about 15%.

Unlike a stock fund, these trusts are not registered investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940, so they do not carry the same protections. Read each prospectus. These descriptions say what the funds hold, not what to buy.

Stocks pay earnings and dividends, bonds pay interest and gold has centuries of use as a store of value. Bitcoin pays nothing, so its price rests on what buyers are willing to pay. That makes it very sensitive to sentiment, liquidity and regulation.

The issuer data show how far it can move. IBIT returned -26.80% at NAV over the year to Sep 30, 2026 and 26.42% a year since launch, and by Nov 9, 2026 its year-to-date figure was -14.57%. Compare that with the physical metal trusts on the gold and silver ETFs page.

Because the six funds hold the same coin, they share every risk of bitcoin itself. Choosing between them does not change that exposure.

Four issuers report returns to Sep 30, 2026 and two, FBTC and HODL, showed month-end figures to Oct 31, 2026 on the pages read. Because the dates differ, compare funds with the same date and treat the others as context. Figures are NAV total returns, net of fees, and since-launch figures are annualized.

Source: issuer fund pages (iShares, Fidelity, Grayscale, ARK Invest, Bitwise and VanEck). All six launched in 2024 apart from GBTC, whose trust dates from 2013, so none has a 3-year, 5-year or 10-year figure that is comparable. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Among the funds reported to Sep 30, 2026, one-year NAV returns sit within about 1.3 points of each other, and GBTC, which charges the highest fee, trailed the others. Over a year that gap is close to the fee difference, as the comparison pages show.

A single year of bitcoin returns says little about the next one. Read how to measure investment growth and nominal vs real values before treating any of these numbers as a forecast.

Bitcoin earns nothing. A coin does not pay interest and does not pay a dividend, so none of these six trusts has a yield or makes regular distributions. The whole return comes from the bitcoin price.

That makes the fee more visible than in a stock or bond fund, where income can cover it. Here the fee is taken by selling bitcoin, and an investor who needs cash has to sell shares.

See what is dividend yield and yield vs total return for how income and price change add up in other kinds of funds.

Overlap is simple here. Every trust holds bitcoin and nothing else, so all fifteen pairs overlap completely. Owning two of them repeats one position and adds a second fee to track.

Since the asset is identical, the fee gap is the main thing to compare. It runs from 0.00 points for BITB and HODL to 1.30 points for GBTC and BITB or HODL.

Each page below puts two trusts side by side on cost, what backs each share, tracking against the bitcoin reference rate, returns, trading and taxes. Every figure carries its date, and the data room at the bottom of each page lists the source and grade of each number.

• 1. Asset All six hold bitcoin, so exposure is the same. Decide how much bitcoin risk you want first.
• 2. Cost Expense ratios run from 0.20% to 1.50% here, and the fee is the main difference between funds.
• 3. Tracking Check how far the fund has trailed its reference rate. It should be close to the fee.
• 4. Trading Larger trusts usually trade with tighter spreads. Issuer pages showed 30-day median spreads of 0.02% to 0.04% where reported.
• 5. Share price A lower share price helps if you buy whole shares in small amounts. It does not make bitcoin cheaper.
• 6. Custody Read who holds the coins and how, and what insurance the prospectus describes.
• 7. Dates and sources Compare returns only when the periods match, and note where they do not.

Start with how to research an ETF if the terms are new, and size any bitcoin position inside your whole allocation with asset allocation explained.

On a $100,000 balance, 0.20% is $200 a year, 0.25% is $250 and 1.50% is $1500. Because the funds hold the same coin, a fee gap flows almost one for one into the return gap. Use the ETF Fee Calculator to turn a fee gap into dollars over time.

Trading costs come from the bid/ask spread and from any premium or discount to NAV. The issuer pages showed premiums or discounts between -0.09%% and 0.19%% on the dates read (GBTC -0.09%%, FBTC -0.01%%, IBIT 0.03%%, HODL 0.05%%, ARKB 0.19%%), so the price you pay can differ from the value of the bitcoin on a given day. Use limit orders for larger amounts.

Someone who trades often may value the deepest market more than the lowest fee, while a long-term holder usually gains more from the lower fee. Both are reasonable positions, and the comparison pages show the figures for each pair.

You want bitcoin at a low fee: BITB and HODL at 0.20%, then IBIT and FBTC at 0.25%. Compare them on the BITB vs HODL page.

You trade often or use options: IBIT is the largest trust. See IBIT vs FBTC and IBIT vs HODL.

You already hold GBTC: it charges the most, so see IBIT vs GBTC and GBTC vs BITB for what the fee gap is worth, and check the tax effect of selling first.

You want a mid-sized fund at a low fee: read ARKB vs HODL.

You already own stocks and bonds: bitcoin behaves differently and pays no income, so it usually plays a small role. Check what you own with the Diversification Calculator and size any position against your whole portfolio.

Owning two bitcoin trusts. IBIT plus FBTC is one position in bitcoin with two fees to track.

Reading a low share price as a bargain. $10,000 buys about the same amount of bitcoin through any of the six. Only the fee changes what you keep.

Ignoring the fee gap. GBTC charges 1.50% against 0.20% for HODL, a difference of $1300 a year on $100,000.

Expecting income. None of these trusts pays a distribution.

Sizing too large. A single year can bring a decline of a quarter or more, as the one-year returns above show.

Comparing returns on different dates. Check that two funds report to the same day before naming a winner.

Holding bitcoin through a trust removes the work of storing it, but not the risk of the price. Past gains are not a limit on future losses, and the trust is not covered by the protections of a registered fund.

U.S.-listed trusts such as IBIT, FBTC, GBTC, ARKB, BITB and HODL trade in U.S. dollars. Buying them from a Canadian account usually involves converting Canadian dollars, which adds a cost, and a move in the U.S. dollar also changes your return in Canadian dollars.

These trusts pay no dividends, so U.S. dividend withholding tax is not the main question. How gains are taxed depends on the account type and your own situation.

Confirm the rules for your accounts with a qualified tax professional, and see how to build an ETF portfolio for how a bitcoin position fits inside an allocation.

Figures come from the issuer pages for each fund: iShares for IBIT, Fidelity for FBTC, Grayscale for GBTC, ARK Invest for ARKB, Bitwise for BITB and VanEck for HODL. Fund facts are dated Nov 8 to Nov 10, 2026 and net assets are dated by fund. Gaps are shown as Not captured, and nothing was filled from memory or from another fund.

Bitcoin per share is the issuer figure for FBTC, GBTC and HODL. For IBIT and BITB it is NAV divided by the iShares reference price of $74,759.39 on Nov 9, 2026, and for ARKB it is NAV divided by the bitcoin price implied by the FBTC NAV and bitcoin per share on Nov 10, 2026. The tracking gap is the benchmark return minus the NAV return from the same issuer page. The pages are educational research, not personal advice, and they do not recommend any fund.

Pathways, not rankings or recommendations.