Best Ethereum ETF in 2026: All 11 US Spot ETH Funds Compared

TL;DR. Eleven US spot Ethereum ETFs, and by September 2026 six of them stake (ETHB, FETH, TETH, ETHE, the Grayscale mini with ticker ETH, and Morgan Stanley's MSSE) while five don't (ETHA, ETHW, ETHV, QETH, EZET). Fees run from 0.14% to 2.50%. The shortlist for most buyers is three funds: Grayscale's mini at 0.15%, which stakes and hands over 94% of rewards; BlackRock's ETHA at 0.25%, the largest and most liquid at $8.57bn on 16 September 2026; and BlackRock's ETHB at a waived 0.12% for staking with the biggest brand behind it. Morgan Stanley's MSSE undercuts all three at 0.14% and stakes from day one, but it has been trading for eight weeks and has never reported its size. Avoid ETHE, which charges 2.50% for the same ether its sibling holds at 0.15%.

The full roster

Nine of the eleven started trading on 23 July 2024. BlackRock's staked trust followed on 12 March 2026, and Morgan Stanley's on 28 July 2026. All eleven are grantor trusts holding ether in cold storage, not 1940 Act funds. Each figure carries its own as-of date because they move daily.

Ticker	Fund	Exchange	Fee	Stakes?	Ether custodian	Net assets (as of)
ETHA	iShares Ethereum Trust (BlackRock)	Nasdaq	0.25%	No	Coinbase Custody	$8.57bn (16 Sep 2026)
ETHB	iShares Staked Ethereum Trust (BlackRock)	Nasdaq	0.25%, waived to 0.12%	Yes, 82% of rewards paid out	Coinbase Custody	$1.04bn (16 Sep 2026)
FETH	Fidelity Ethereum Fund	Cboe BZX	0.25%	Yes (added Aug 2026), 85% paid out	Fidelity Digital Assets	~$898m (Aug 2026)
ETHW	Bitwise Ethereum ETF	NYSE Arca	0.20%	No	Coinbase Custody	$262m (15 Sep 2026)
TETH	21Shares Ethereum Staking ETF	Cboe BZX	0.21%, waived to 0% until 8 Oct 2026	Yes, 75% paid out	Coinbase, BitGo, Anchorage	$25.0m (16 Sep 2026)
ETHV	VanEck Ethereum ETF	Cboe BZX	0.20%	No	Gemini	$106.8m (31 Mar 2026)
QETH	Invesco Galaxy Ethereum ETF	Cboe BZX	0.25%	No	Coinbase Custody	$15.6m (30 Jun 2026)
EZET	Franklin Ethereum ETF	Cboe BZX	0.19%	No	Coinbase Custody	2.7m shares (9 Jun 2026)
ETHE	Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF	NYSE Arca	2.50%	Yes, 77% paid out	Coinbase Custody	$1.22bn (30 Jun 2026)
ETH	Grayscale Ethereum Staking Mini ETF	NYSE Arca	0.15%	Yes, 94% paid out	Coinbase Custody	$1.35bn (30 Jun 2026)
MSSE	Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust	NYSE Arca	0.14%	Yes, from day one, 95% kept by the trust	BNY and Coinbase Custody	Not disclosed (listed 28 Jul 2026)

Sources: issuer product pages for the September figures; SEC 10-Q and 10-K filings for Grayscale, VanEck, Invesco and Franklin; the 424B3 prospectus of 23 July 2026 for Morgan Stanley; CoinDesk for Fidelity. "Paid out" is the share of gross staking rewards left after the sponsor and validators take their cut.

MSSE is the row where the usual numbers don't exist yet. Morgan Stanley listed it on NYSE Arca on 28 July 2026 at a unitary sponsor fee of 0.14%, the lowest standing fee any US spot ether fund has charged, with staking switched on at launch, custody split between BNY and Coinbase Custody, and 5% of gross staking rewards going to those custodians and the staking providers while the sponsor keeps none. What no filing shows is how much ether the trust holds: it has published no quarterly report, and its net assets appear in no SEC document as of publication. Our own flow series is the only read available and it is a thin one, +$39.3m across the 14 sessions with non-zero creations since 28 July, as of 21 September 2026. Eight weeks of data says nothing about whether a fund will gather assets. Read the MSSE row as a price tag, not a track record.

Two products you'll see on broker screens aren't on the list. REX-Osprey's ESK, launched 25 September 2025, is a 1940 Act fund holding staked ether alongside other ETPs, not a spot trust; ETHU and EETH are leveraged and futures products. cryptoetf.today tracks the eleven trusts above and nothing else.

What changed: staking arrived, unevenly

When these funds launched, none could stake; the SEC made issuers strip staking out of their filings as a condition of approval, which is the story in our staking explainer. That article is now a history lesson. Cboe's rule filing to let Franklin's EZET stake was withdrawn on 26 September 2025, per the SEC docket, and within ten days Grayscale had switched staking on.

• 6 October 2025. Grayscale begins staking in ETHE and the mini. On 6 January 2026 ETHE paid $0.083178 per share, the first staking distribution by any US spot crypto ETP (Grayscale 8-K).
• 9 October 2025. 21Shares adds staking to TETH (renamed from CETH on 28 August 2025) and waives the whole 0.21% fee for twelve months.
• 12 March 2026. BlackRock lists ETHB as a separate staked trust rather than converting ETHA. Inception was 18 February; the first trade came three weeks later.
• August 2026. Fidelity amends the FETH registration statement to stake up to 100% of its ether and pay out 85% of gross rewards. Fidelity's product page says the fund stakes and pays rewards in cash; the August 2026 8-K sets the schedule at least quarterly.

Bitwise, VanEck, Invesco and Franklin haven't followed as of their latest filings (a June 2026 10-Q for QETH, a March 2026 10-Q for ETHV, a 10-K to March 2026 for EZET) and Bitwise's fund page for ETHW.

How much of the staking reward you actually keep

Staking yield on Ethereum is modest: iShares quoted a "staking rewards rate" of 1.45% for ETHB on 16 September 2026. Against that, the haircut each sponsor takes decides the ranking, and it varies far more than the headline fees do.

Fund	Share of ether staked	Sponsor + validator cut	Reaches shareholders	Distribution
ETH (Grayscale mini)	~83% (30 Jun 2026)	6%	94%	Cash, at least quarterly from July 2026
FETH (Fidelity)	Up to 100%	15%	85%	Cash, five times a year
ETHB (BlackRock)	70–95% target; 86.9% at 30 Jun 2026	18%	82%	Cash, monthly
ETHE (Grayscale)	~82% (30 Jun 2026)	23%	77%	Cash; $0.196777 per share paid in H1 2026
TETH (21Shares)	40–70% target	25%	75%	Cash, at least quarterly
MSSE (Morgan Stanley)	50–80% intended; no filing reports the actual share yet	5%	95%	Cash, monthly but at least quarterly

On paper MSSE has the widest pass-through of the six: the prospectus puts the custodians and staking providers at an aggregate 5% of gross rewards and says the delegated sponsor "will not receive or retain any portion of the staking rewards earned by the Trust". Read it as a promise rather than a result. The 50% to 80% staking range is an intention, the fund has filed no quarterly report, and no distribution has been paid, so nobody outside Morgan Stanley has yet seen what that 95% produced on a real balance.

Grayscale's two funds are the strange pair. Same sponsor, custodian and ether, yet the mini keeps 6% of rewards while ETHE keeps 23%, on top of a fee 16 times higher. Both numbers are in the June 2026 10-Qs.

One caveat: the yield is paid in cash, not in extra ether, because the trust sells rewards to fund each distribution. In a taxable account every distribution is a taxable event. Inside an IRA it isn't, one more argument for holding these in retirement accounts, as our Roth IRA guide sets out for the Bitcoin funds.

Best for the lowest cost: Grayscale ETH mini, now undercut on paper

At 0.15% the mini was the cheapest spot ether fund in the US from launch until the end of July 2026, and it stakes with the smallest haircut of any fund that has reported one. On $10,000 you pay $15 a year in fees and give up 6% of a 1.45% reward, about $9. Nothing with a trading history comes close on running cost.

MSSE now undercuts it on both numbers: 0.14% against 0.15%, and a 5% cut of rewards against 6%. On $10,000 that is a dollar a year of fee and roughly a dollar and a half of reward. That is the entire advantage, and it is worth being clear about what sits on the other side of it. The mini has two years of trading, $1.35bn at 30 June 2026, an options chain, and a staked share (~83%) that appears in a filing you can read. MSSE has eight weeks, no published size, a staking range of 50% to 80% that is stated as an intention rather than measured, and no distribution paid yet. If you are opening a position today and one basis point decides it, MSSE wins on price. If you would rather pay a basis point more for a fund whose behaviour is on the record, that is still the mini, and the question is worth reopening when Morgan Stanley files its first quarterly report.

The catch is trading. The mini turns over a fraction of ETHA's volume, and a fund one-sixth the size shows wider spreads on a bad day. That doesn't matter for a buy-and-hold position. For someone moving size several times a week, spread and depth cost more than 10 basis points of fee, and ETHA wins.

Best for size and liquidity: BlackRock ETHA

ETHA held $8.57bn across 473.8 million shares on 16 September 2026, more than the other ten funds combined on their latest reported figures. That scale is what the 0.25% buys: typically the tightest spreads in the group and the deepest options chain. The SEC approved options on ETHA, FETH, ETHW, ETHE and the mini on 9 April 2025, American-style and physically settled, with a 25,000-contract position limit at launch.

What ETHA doesn't do is stake. BlackRock's answer was a second product, either a clean separation or an admission that converting a fund with 470 million shares outstanding was too hard. For the BlackRock name with staking income, the next fund is the one.

Best for staking with a brand name: BlackRock ETHB

ETHB is ETHA's staking twin: same sponsor, custodian, Nasdaq listing and 0.25% fee, waived to 0.12% for twelve months from 12 March 2026 on the first $2.5bn of assets. It stakes 70% to 95% of its ether under normal conditions and had 86.9% staked at 30 June 2026 (250,585 of 288,417 ETH, per its 10-Q). Per the prospectus, Coinbase's base staking fee is 10% of rewards, falling to 6% once assets pass $20bn; the rest of the 18% cut goes to BlackRock and the other providers.

Rewards are paid monthly in cash; the second quarter of 2026 produced $0.02 per share. The fund reached $1.04bn in six months, in a half-year when ether funds lost 46% of NAV per share (QETH went from $29.61 at the end of 2025 to $15.85 by 30 June 2026), which says something about demand. Staked ether sits on a separate "SETH" line in the iShares holdings file; the flows page sums both lines before pricing the day's share change.

Does ETHB beat the mini? On fees it does until March 2027 (0.12% against 0.15%), then loses (0.25% against 0.15%). On the reward cut it loses now (18% against 6%). Until the waiver lapses it's close enough that liquidity and the monthly payment schedule can decide it.

Best for a non-Coinbase custodian: Fidelity FETH or VanEck ETHV

Nine of the eleven funds keep their ether at Coinbase Custody Trust Company, in whole or in part. If that concentration bothers you (read the custody mechanics before deciding whether it should), two funds sit outside it. FETH is custodied by Fidelity Digital Assets, an affiliate of the sponsor; since August 2026 Anchorage Digital Bank and BitGo also hold ether for the fund's staking programme (8-K, 7 Aug 2026), so it's the only ether ETF that avoids Coinbase rather than a purely self-custodied one. ETHV uses Gemini Trust Company, with Coinbase as a backup VanEck says it has no plans to use. MSSE is a half-exception rather than a third option: its prospectus names BNY and Coinbase Custody as joint ether custodians, either of which may hold all, some or none of the trust's ether at a given moment, so it dilutes the Coinbase exposure without removing it.

FETH is the more complete product now that staking is on: 0.25% fee, 85% of rewards paid out, cash distributions at least quarterly, an options chain. ETHV is cheaper at 0.20% but doesn't stake and held $106.8m at the end of March 2026, small enough that spreads deserve a look first.

Best if you want a free year: 21Shares TETH

TETH's entire 0.21% fee is waived from 9 October 2025 to 8 October 2026, so on publication day about two weeks of free carry remain. After that it's a mid-priced staking fund that keeps 25% of rewards, the largest cut in the group, stakes only 40% to 70% of its ether, and at $25.0m on 16 September 2026 is the smallest fund that stakes. It was a good deal for a year. From October it needs a reason the mini doesn't answer better.

The one to avoid: Grayscale ETHE at 2.50%

ETHE charges 2.50% a year; every other fund here charges 0.14% to 0.25%. On $10,000 that's $250 a year against $15 for Grayscale's own mini, which holds the same asset at the same custodian under the same sponsor. Add the 23% reward haircut against the mini's 6% and no new dollar belongs in ETHE.

So why does it still hold $1.22bn? Because it isn't full of new dollars. ETHE began in December 2017 as a private trust, traded over the counter for years at wide premiums and discounts, and converted to an ETF on 23 July 2024. Long-time holders sit on large embedded gains, and switching to the mini would crystallise them. Grayscale created the mini in July 2024 precisely to give those holders a cheaper home, seeding it with a slice of ETHE's ether. Those still in ETHE are mostly people for whom the tax cost of leaving exceeds the 2.35 percentage points a year they're overpaying. If you're reading a comparison article, you're not one of them.

The full ETHE story is queued for its own review; the mechanics of its old discount are in how premium and discount to NAV work.

How the small funds fit in

Bitwise ETHW, Invesco QETH and Franklin EZET are competent, cheap, passive ether trusts with nothing wrong and nothing distinctive. ETHW at 0.20% and $262m is the largest of the three and has an options chain; EZET is the cheapest non-staking fund at 0.19%; QETH held $15.6m at 30 June 2026 in 983,000 shares. A fund that small isn't dangerous, but it can close, and a closure forces a taxable sale on the sponsor's schedule rather than yours. If you already hold one, there's no urgent reason to move. There's also no reason to choose one fresh when the mini costs less and stakes.

Picking by need

If you want...	Choose	Why
The lowest all-in cost with a track record	ETH (Grayscale mini)	0.15% fee, stakes, keeps only 6% of rewards
The lowest headline fee, new fund accepted	MSSE	0.14%, stakes from day one, sponsor takes no cut of rewards
The deepest liquidity or options	ETHA	$8.57bn, tightest spreads, largest options chain
Staking plus BlackRock	ETHB	0.12% until Mar 2027, 82% of rewards paid monthly
Custody outside Coinbase	FETH or ETHV	Fidelity self-custody; Gemini for VanEck
Staking inside a Fidelity account	FETH	85% payout, five distributions a year, options
To stop paying 2.50%	Anything but ETHE	Same ether at 0.15% from the same sponsor

Whether an ether ETF belongs in the portfolio at all, and in what proportion to a Bitcoin fund, is a separate question covered in ETH ETF versus BTC ETF allocation. The Bitcoin fee landscape is in Bitcoin ETF expense ratios compared, and the 2026 launch calendar in the full list of new crypto ETFs.

One last check before buying: where the money is actually going. Daily creations and redemptions for all eleven are on the Ethereum ETF flows page, computed from each issuer's holdings file every business day, and the ETH reading of the CEFI index condenses the last month of it to a 0–100 score.

FAQ

Sources and further reading

• iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHB): fee waiver, net assets and staking rate, 16 Sep 2026 — ishares.com; Q2 2026 10-Q with staked ether and distributions — sec.gov.
• iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA): net assets and shares outstanding, 16 Sep 2026 — ishares.com.
• Grayscale ETHE and ETH mini: Q2 2026 10-Qs with fees, staked balances and reward splits — sec.gov, sec.gov; first staking distribution 8-K, Jan 2026 — sec.gov.
• 21Shares Ethereum Staking ETF (TETH): fee waiver, staking range and net assets, 16 Sep 2026 — 21shares.com.
• Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust (MSSE): 0.14% unitary sponsor fee, BNY and Coinbase Custody as joint ether custodians, the 50–80% intended staking range and the 5% reward cut — 424B3 prospectus, 23 Jul 2026 — sec.gov; NYSE Arca listing certification, 24 Jul 2026 — sec.gov.
• Fidelity FETH staking amendment, Aug 2026 — coindesk.com; Bitwise ETHW fund page — ethwetf.com; SEC options approval, 9 Apr 2025 — coindesk.com.