BITW vs NCIQ

BITWBBitwise 10 Crypto Index ETF

NCIQAHashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF

In short

BITW Crypto's original index fund. Live since 2017, first as a private placement and now as an ETF, it holds the ten largest crypto assets and rebalances monthly. That long history carries a 0.75% fee.

NCIQ A passive basket of the digital assets in a Nasdaq index, run at 0.25% a year while the typical multi-coin crypto fund charges more than double that. It tracks the index and makes no attempt to beat it.

Stated mandate

BITW The fund seeks to invest in a broad portfolio of crypto assets that tracks the Bitwise 10 Large Cap Crypto Index, with monthly rebalancing to reflect index changes.

NCIQ The Trust seeks to match the daily price changes of its reference index, after expenses and liabilities, by investing in the index's digital-asset constituents. It uses a passive strategy and does not seek to outperform the index.

Why people hold it

• BITW Longevity is the edge: operations began in November 2017, one of the longest continuous records among multi-coin crypto baskets, spanning several boom-and-bust cycles.sec.gov
• One ticker, ten coins: the portfolio mirrors the Bitwise 10 Large Cap Crypto Index and rebalances monthly as the index changes, so you skip wallets, keys and coin-picking.
• No style drift. The fund holds what its index says it holds, one of the tighter mandate implementations among the ten funds in its category.
• Reports like a public company: annual 10-K and quarterly 10-Q filings with the SEC put holdings and audited financials on the record.sec.govsec.gov 2

• NCIQ Charges 0.25% a year, well under half the 0.59% median for multi-coin crypto baskets such as GDLC and KRYP.
• Narrow, literal mandate: match the daily moves of the Nasdaq CME Crypto Settlement Price Index after expenses, no outperformance attempt. It has hewed closely to that job.
• One ticker buys the whole index basket, so no exchange accounts, wallets or self-custody to manage.

Worth knowing

• BITW Cost is the trade-off: 0.75% sits above the category median, and cheaper broad crypto baskets exist (EZPZ at 0.19%, NCIQ at 0.25%).
• Crypto sits at the volatile end of the shelf. A ten-asset basket blunts single-coin blowups, but not the asset class's deep drawdowns.
• It trades lighter than the category's busiest names, so spreads can run wider, and the trust makes no distributions: price is the whole return story.

• NCIQ Structured as a trust rather than a registered fund, so the protections investors get under the Investment Company Act do not apply here.
• Generally pays no cash distributions, so any return has to come from price moves alone.
• Crypto prices swing hard, and with a January 2025 launch the live track record is still short.

Full BITW profile⁠

Full NCIQ profile⁠