ETH vs ETHB

ETHAGrayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF

ETHBCiShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF

In short

ETH The cheap seat in spot ether. A grantor trust that does one thing (hold ether, track its index price) for 0.15% a year, well under the going rate for the category, from a 2024 launch class that is still finding its pecking order.

ETHB Most spot ether funds just park the coin. This iShares trust stakes it, aiming to track ether's price while also capturing the rewards that staked ether earns. Fee sits at the ether category's median.

Stated mandate

ETH The Trust passively seeks to have Shares, measured by Ether per Share, reflect the value of its Ether holdings using the Index Price, after expenses and other liabilities.

ETHB The fund seeks to track ether’s price performance while also capturing rewards from staking the Trust’s ether.

Why people hold it

• ETH 0.15% a year, versus 0.25% for the typical spot-ether fund. Among funds tracking the same reference, only EZET lists less at 0.00%.
• The mandate is narrow and it is honored: hold ether, reflect the Index Price after expenses. One of the tightest implementations in its spot-ether peer group.
• Assets run into the billions and shares trade actively, which puts it among the easier names to get into and out of in a young category.

• ETHB Staking is written into the mandate, not bolted on: the trust seeks ether's price performance plus the rewards from staking the ether it holds.ishares.com
• The 0.25% expense ratio lands right at the median for spot ether funds, so the staking machinery isn't priced above a plain wrapper.
• Staked-ether exposure arrives in a normal brokerage account: no wallet, no validator to run, no private keys to lose.ishares.com

Worth knowing

• ETH This is spot ether, undiluted. Price swings are large in both directions and the trust is built to pass them straight through, not to cushion them.
• No distributions. Whatever happens here comes from ether's price, less the 0.15% fee, with nothing paid out along the way.
• Launched in 2024, so the history is thin and our risk read leans on roughly a year of data rather than a full market cycle.

• ETHB Cheaper ways to hold spot ether exist: EZET at 0.00%, ETH at 0.15%, ETHW and ETHV at 0.20%. Staking rewards have to cover that fee gap first.
• It launched in 2026, so there's no long record showing how the staking piece behaves across a full crypto cycle.
• In a crowded field of ten spot ether funds, the overall build sits behind the category's stronger implementations on cost and trading friction.

Full ETH profile⁠

Full ETHB profile⁠