Spot crypto ETFs added Solana and XRP. Bitcoin still holds the money

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF BGBTC charges 1.50% to hold bitcoin. Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF CETHE charges 2.50% to hold ether. The same sponsor's mini funds, Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF ABTC and Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF AETH, charge 0.15% for the identical coins. Combined, $9.74 billion and $1.77 billion remain in the expensive share classes.

That fee gap is the live fact of the theme, not this morning's bounce. Bitcoin is at $80,231 as of 10:11 a.m. ET Friday, September 18, up 5.1% on the session. The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF BIBIT, which holds bitcoin, is up 5.0%. BIBIT is still down 8.5% year to date and 30.9% over 12 months. An S&P 500 fund, ASPY, is up 12.0% and 16.5% over those same windows. A Nasdaq-100 fund, AQQQ, is up 17.0% and 22.1%. The wrapper put the coins in a brokerage account. It did not turn them into a quieter asset, and it did not empty those two share classes.

The menu got longer. The economic bet did not.

A 5% morning inside a 31% year

On Tuesday, September 15, the Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act, a bill that would have set out how US regulators oversee digital assets. US spot bitcoin funds posted $450 million in net outflows that session, the heaviest single day since June. BIBIT closed down 3.6%.

The longer arc is less dramatic than a 5% print and more useful. BIBIT is up 17.1% over one month and 27.5% over three months, a recovery that includes the August run in token funds we ranked here. It remains 36.8% below its 52-week high of $71.82. Bitcoin itself is 36.4% below its 52-week high of $126,198. Annualized volatility in BIBIT is 49.2%, against 17.0% in ASPY. The maximum drawdown in the bitcoin fund's history is 53.3%.

A morning like this one is what a 49% volatility asset does. It is not evidence that the drawdown is over.

These products are, with few exceptions, grantor trusts registered under the Securities Act of 1933. They hold the coin in custody and are designed to track its dollar price, minus expenses. They are not 1940 Act stock funds. They do not produce earnings. Where staking has been added, they can produce extra tokens. That is a different income mechanism, not a different directional bet.

Bitcoin is still the product

BIBIT had $62.1 billion in assets as of Tuesday, September 15. It holds essentially 100% bitcoin, charges 0.25%, and turns over about $2.14 billion a day. That is the core of the theme: one coin, in size, with a creation-redemption process that has kept the share price close to the value of the bitcoin inside.

The next bitcoin funds do the same job at different prices. Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund BFBTC holds bitcoin, has $13.9 billion in assets, and also charges 0.25%. Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Trust ABITB is $2.91 billion at 0.20%. ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF BARKB is $2.66 billion at 0.21%. VanEck Bitcoin ETF AHODL is $1.13 billion at 0.20%. Franklin Bitcoin ETF BEZBC is $424 million at 0.19%.

Then there is Grayscale's split screen. BGBTC, the converted 2013 trust, still has $9.74 billion in assets and charges 1.50%. ABTC, launched in July 2024, has $4.81 billion and charges 0.15%. Same issuer, same coin, 1.35 percentage points of fee between them.

Over the past 12 months that fee has shown up as a small gap in return, not a different trade. ABTC is down 30.7%. BIBIT is down 30.9%. BFBTC and ABITB are each down 30.9%. BGBTC is down 31.7%. Among the 2024 bitcoin launches, the range is a fraction of a percentage point. The coin moved. The tickers followed. The selection variables that actually differ are the fee, the trading volume, and whether you are still paying the legacy Grayscale rate.

Assets for BIBIT and BETHA are as of Tuesday, September 15; the other rows are as of Friday, September 18. Returns are total returns through this morning's session. Newer Solana and AXRP funds do not yet have a one-year history.

The table's lesson is not which ticker "won." It is how little same-coin funds diverged, and how much the coin choice did.

Ether did the same thing, then added staking

BETHA had $9.10 billion in assets as of Tuesday, about one-seventh of BIBIT. It holds ether, charges 0.25%, and has done what a pure-play is supposed to do: lose more than bitcoin has. It is down 13.9% year to date and 43.5% over 12 months. Fidelity Ethereum Fund BFETH is $1.35 billion at the same 0.25% fee, down 13.8% and 43.5%. Vehicle choice did not rescue the year; the asset set it.

Staking is the construction difference that ether introduced. AETH holds ether, charges 0.15%, and appended the term staking to its name effective January 5, 2026. It paid $0.035 a share on September 3. It is down 12.9% year to date and 42.6% over 12 months, a modest gap versus BETHA that lines up with a lower fee and a small payout, not with a different market.

The expensive twin is still on the board. CETHE has $1.77 billion in assets and charges 2.50%, 2.35 percentage points above the mini fund. It is down 14.4% year to date and 43.9% over 12 months. Ether's 12-month volatility in BETHA is 70.5%, and the maximum drawdown is 67.9%. Paying 2.50% to own that path is a choice the mini share class exists to make unnecessary.

Solana and AXRP lengthened the shelf

The 2025 launch wave is the part of the theme that did not exist when BIBIT opened in January 2024. It is also still small.

Bitwise Solana Staking ETF ABSOL is the scale product: $975 million in assets, 0.20%, and a mandate to hold Solana and stake it. US spot Solana funds have drawn about $1.37 billion in cumulative net inflows since they launched last October, $1.04 billion of that into ABSOL. The fund is down 8.8% year to date, in line with the bitcoin funds on that window, and up 59.1% over three months and 8.4% this morning. That three-month burst is the same Solana run that led August's category ranking. It is not a one-year record. The fund does not have one yet. Inception was October 23, 2025.

REX-Osprey SOL + Staking ETF CSSK is the construction exception, not a second Bitwise. It is active, charges 0.75%, and has $86.7 million in assets. Only 53.4% is Solana held directly. Another 42.6% is CoinShares Physical Staked Solana, with a smaller liquid-staking line behind that. Monthly distributions have been large enough that its year-to-date total return, -9.7%, beats its price return, -23.1%, by 13.5 percentage points. Fidelity Solana Fund FSOL, $195 million at 0.25%, shows the same staking gap in quieter form: -9.5% total return year to date against a -12.3% price return. That is income mechanics, not diversification. CSSK is still a Solana bet, routed through extra wrappers.

AXRP is the other new sleeve, and the most crowded. Bitwise AXRP ETF AXRP has $487 million in assets at 0.34%. Franklin AXRP ETF AXRPZ has $364 million at 0.19%. Canary AXRP ETF BXRPC holds AXRP at a 0.50% fee. US spot AXRP funds have drawn about $1.72 billion in cumulative net inflows since they launched. The two largest are down 25.7% and 25.4% year to date. AXRP itself is at $1.36 this morning, up 5.3%, and 56% below its 52-week high of $3.10. A wider lineup did not produce a gentler asset.

Behind them sits a still-smaller tail of single-token trusts: Hyperliquid, Sui, Chainlink, Dogecoin, Avalanche. Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF AHYPG, which launched on June 3, has $181 million in assets at 0.29%. Those products add protocol-specific and classification risk on top of the same directional crypto cycle.

A basket is still mostly bitcoin

If the point of the new tickers is to own "crypto" rather than one coin, the index funds are the honest test. They do not pass it.

BGDLC has $401 million in assets and charges 0.59%.

Bitwise 10 Crypto Index ETF BBITW is larger, at $685 million, and more expensive, at 0.75%. It is 76.1% bitcoin and 14.6% ether, with AXRP, Solana, and a scatter of smaller names in the residual. Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF ANCIQ charges 0.25% and, on its latest holdings, is 74.5% bitcoin.

Call that a basket if you want. Economically it is a bitcoin fund with a drag from the coins that have done worse. BGDLC is down 10.7% year to date and 32.1% over 12 months. BBITW is down 10.7% and 34.2%. Both trailed BIBIT. Breadth in the name did not mean breadth in the return.

That is the structural trap of market-cap crypto. Bitcoin is the largest asset, so a cap-weighted product keeps handing it the portfolio. You pay an extra fee, accept extra protocol risk in the remaining quarter, and still live with bitcoin's year.

The year, measured against what else you could have owned

Put the sleeves next to each other and the hierarchy is stable. Bitcoin funds are down about 8.5% year to date and 31% over 12 months. Ether funds are down about 14% and 43%. The largest AXRP funds are down about 26% year to date. Solana, after a violent three-month bounce, is down 8.8% year to date in ABSOL, in line with the bitcoin funds. Every one of those windows is worse than ASPY and AQQQ.

That comparison is not an argument that crypto should behave like equities. It is the opportunity cost of a satellite sleeve that has been this volatile. BETHA has seen a 67.9% maximum drawdown. BIBIT's is 53.3%. AXRPZ has already drawn down 56.9% in a life shorter than a year.

BGBTC and CETHE still sit inside that drawdown at 1.50% and 2.50%. On today's $9.74 billion in BGBTC, a 1.50% fee runs to about $146 million a year. The same bitcoin priced at the mini fund's 0.15% would cost about $15 million. The gap is $131 million a year. On $1.77 billion in CETHE, 2.50% runs to about $44 million a year against about $2.7 million at the mini rate.

Selling BGBTC to buy a cheaper bitcoin fund is a taxable sale. The July 2024 mini-share distribution was the one Grayscale described as tax-neutral for holders. Two years later, $9.74 billion is still in the 1.50% class and $1.77 billion is still in the 2.50% class.