Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin ETFs

  • Fees: ETFs often have management fees baked into the fund, meaning that a percentage of the money in the pool is going not to investments but to pay the people/company managing the fund. Check out what the “expense ratio” listed on an ETF is before investing – you want it to be as low as possible, under 1% ideally.

  • No actual bitcoin ownership: A bitcoin ETF cannot be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies as holders do not own the asset but merely gain price exposure.

  • More rigid trading hours: Crypto can be bought or sold 24/7, but financial exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) are open only Monday to Friday from 9:30 a.m. ET to 4 p.m. ET, so if there is significant movement in BTC’s price overnight you can’t do anything about it until the market re-opens.

  • Inaccurate pricing: A bitcoin price increase/decrease may not be reflected in the ETF value in real time, especially if the ETF has multiple holdings.