WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund (BTCW) Review
BTCW is the smallest US spot Bitcoin ETF still trading — $136.5m of net assets at 30 June 2026 — at the same 0.25% fee as IBIT and FBTC. A solid product with nothing distinctive to sell.
TL;DR. WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund (BTCW) started trading on 11 January 2024 and charges 0.25% — the same as BlackRock IBIT and Fidelity FBTC, which are respectively about 320 and 75 times its size. At 30 June 2026 BTCW held $136,476,680 of net assets and 2,310 BTC across 2.185 million shares, making it the smallest US spot Bitcoin ETF still trading. WisdomTree is a credible ETF operator with a real digital-asset business behind it, but BTCW itself offers no fee advantage, no custody differentiation and no structural innovation. At identical cost, the larger funds give the same exposure with a deeper book.
The basics
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | BTCW |
| Exchange | Cboe BZX Exchange |
| Trust organised | 8 March 2021 (Delaware statutory trust) |
| Trading commenced | 11 January 2024 |
| Sponsor | WisdomTree Digital Commodity Services, LLC |
| Bitcoin custodian | Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC |
| Cash custodian, administrator, fund accountant, transfer agent | The Bank of New York Mellon |
| Trustee | Delaware Trust Company |
| Marketing agent | Foreside Fund Services, LLC |
| Prime execution agent | Coinbase, Inc. |
| Expense ratio | 0.25% |
| Net assets (30 Jun 2026) | $136,476,680 — 2,310 BTC |
| Shares outstanding (30 Jun 2026) | 2,185,000 (NAV $62.46/share) |
| Basket size | 5,000 shares, cash creations and redemptions |
Figures from the fund's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2026 (CIK 0001850391).
WisdomTree as an issuer
WisdomTree, Inc. (NYSE: WT) is a New York-based ETF specialist that reported approximately $162.9 billion of assets under management at 30 June 2026 across equities, commodities and currency, fixed income, alternatives, leveraged-and-inverse, private assets and cryptocurrency. That places it firmly in the mid-tier of global ETF issuers — larger than the crypto-native boutiques, far smaller than the firms that dominated the spot Bitcoin ETF launch.
Its core competency is ETF operations and product structure; it has run commodity and currency products for two decades and understands physically-backed wrappers well. What it does not have is the institutional sales force and platform ubiquity that let BlackRock and Fidelity collect tens of billions in the first year of spot Bitcoin ETF trading.
For a comparison with a similarly sized issuer that fared better, see the ARK 21Shares ARKB review — ARKB held $1.889bn at 30 June 2026, about fourteen times BTCW, with a 0.21% fee.
The digital-asset business behind the fund
BTCW is not a one-off filing. WisdomTree's own 10-Q describes a digital-asset operation that spans tokenised real-world assets and stablecoins, digital funds, an institutional platform called WisdomTree Connect and a blockchain-native digital wallet, WisdomTree Prime. A separate subsidiary, WisdomTree Digital Movement, Inc., is registered with FinCEN as a money services business. In Europe, WisdomTree provides management services to seven ETP issuers whose products cover commodity, currency, cryptocurrency and leveraged-and-inverse strategies through Jersey-based management companies.
In other words the firm has been building crypto and blockchain infrastructure across several product lines, and had physically-backed crypto ETPs running in Europe before the US spot approval. The scale of the digital-asset book is modest, though: WisdomTree reported $761 million of AUM in digital-asset products at 30 June 2026, down from $867 million at 31 March 2026 on net outflows.
That European pedigree did not translate into US AUM leadership. The European ETP market is bought differently; in the US the dominant channel is registered investment advisers and wirehouse platforms, where name recognition and sales coverage matter more than operational pedigree.
Fees: the launch waiver and what it revealed
BTCW launched with the sponsor fee waived entirely on the first $1 billion of trust assets, for a six-month period starting on the day the shares were listed. Per the fund's 2025 Form 10-K, the waiver expired on 11 July 2024 and the sponsor is no longer waiving anything. The $1bn threshold was never a live question — the fund has never held a tenth of it.
Since July 2024 BTCW has charged the full 0.25%. In the first half of 2026 that came to $186,781 of accrued sponsor fee, against $300,275 in the first half of 2025 — the decline tracks the fall in assets.
0.25% is exactly what IBIT and FBTC charge. Six funds in the category charge less: Morgan Stanley MSBT (0.14%), the Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust (0.15%), Franklin EZBC (0.19%), Bitwise BITB and VanEck HODL (0.20%) and ARK 21Shares ARKB (0.21%). Grayscale GBTC is the expensive outlier at 1.50%. The full breakdown is in Bitcoin ETF expense ratios compared.
WisdomTree priced BTCW to match the market leaders rather than undercut them. With no fee advantage and no structural differentiator, the fund is asking investors to accept a thinner book for identical cost. That is a hard sell, and the asset figures show it.
The AUM reality
$136.5 million makes BTCW the smallest US spot Bitcoin ETF still trading. For scale, at the same date IBIT held $43.39bn, FBTC $10.30bn, GBTC $8.14bn, the Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust $3.19bn, BITB $2.13bn, ARKB $1.89bn, HODL $0.96bn, EZBC $0.335bn and BTCO $0.316bn. The whole category came to $71.42bn across twelve funds.
The fund did briefly get bigger: net assets were $139.7m at 31 December 2025, and the seed investment tells its own story — WisdomTree, Inc. bought $2.5 million of shares at $50 each in December 2023 and January 2024 and sold its remaining 50,000 shares on 16 December 2024.
Three things explain the outcome:
- Brand asymmetry. The January 2024 launch was a race. Advisers who put IBIT or FBTC on approved lists in the first quarter had no reason to revisit the decision.
- No differentiation. WisdomTree did not offer a lower fee (Franklin EZBC at 0.19%, the Grayscale Mini at 0.15%), a different custody arrangement (VanEck HODL names Gemini alongside Coinbase, ARKB names four custodians) or any other distinguishing feature.
- Narrower distribution. For a product competing purely on structure and cost parity, distribution depth is the deciding variable.
The practical consequence is a thin order book. For a buy-and-hold investor making one purchase a year, that is a one-time cost. For anyone rebalancing quarterly or placing larger orders, execution can easily eat more than the fee difference against a cheaper fund. Persistently small funds are also more exposed to a sponsor deciding the economics no longer work — there is no sign of that at BTCW, but it belongs on the list.
Custody: Coinbase Custody Trust
BTCW's bitcoin sits at Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC, a New York-chartered limited purpose trust company regulated by the NYDFS, with Coinbase, Inc. as the trust's prime execution agent. BNY Mellon handles cash, administration, fund accounting and transfer agency.
This is the standard arrangement — funds naming Coinbase Custody as a bitcoin custodian accounted for roughly 85% of the category's assets at 30 June 2026. If you specifically want a non-Coinbase custodian, BTCW does not provide it. See how Bitcoin ETF custody works for which funds do.
Pros
- Established ETF operator. Two decades of ETF operations and $162.9bn of AUM behind the sponsor's parent.
- Real digital-asset business. European crypto ETPs, tokenised funds, WisdomTree Connect and WisdomTree Prime — not a single opportunistic filing.
- Standard, well-understood custody. Coinbase Custody Trust, segregated cold storage, NYDFS-regulated.
- Clean structure. Plain grantor trust, one custodian, one fee, no complexity.
Cons
- Same fee as much larger funds. 0.25% matches IBIT and FBTC without their depth, and six funds charge less.
- Smallest fund in the category. $136.5m of net assets and a correspondingly thin book.
- No structural differentiator. No fee edge, no custody alternative, no distinguishing mandate.
- Long-term persistence depends on the sponsor. Small funds live at the discretion of the issuer's product committee.
Who should consider BTCW
- Existing WisdomTree platform users who prefer to keep holdings inside one product family.
- Small, one-off, long-horizon buyers for whom a wider spread is a single cost that fades over years.
- Investors who specifically value WisdomTree's crypto ETP track record over the size of the fund.
It is the wrong choice for active traders, for large orders, and for anyone with no prior WisdomTree relationship who is simply optimising cost and liquidity — on both of those axes something else wins.
FAQ
What is the expense ratio of WisdomTree BTCW?
0.25% per year of average daily net asset value — the same as BlackRock IBIT and Fidelity FBTC. BTCW launched with the entire sponsor fee waived on the first $1 billion of trust assets for six months from listing; per the 2025 Form 10-K that waiver expired on 11 July 2024 and the full fee has applied since.
How big is WisdomTree BTCW?
$136,476,680 of net assets and 2,310 BTC at 30 June 2026, across 2,185,000 shares at a NAV of $62.46, per the fund's Form 10-Q. That is the smallest of the twelve US spot Bitcoin ETFs in the category, which together held $71.42bn at the same date.
Who custodies the bitcoin behind BTCW?
Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC, a New York-chartered limited purpose trust company regulated by the NYDFS, with Coinbase, Inc. as prime execution agent and BNY Mellon as cash custodian, administrator, fund accountant and transfer agent. BTCW offers no custody diversification away from Coinbase.
Why is BTCW's AUM so much smaller than IBIT or FBTC?
BTCW charges the same 0.25% fee as IBIT and FBTC but has a narrower distribution network and nothing to differentiate it on fee, custody or structure. BlackRock and Fidelity already owned the adviser and wirehouse relationships that drive US ETF flows, and the assets that landed there in the first months after launch stayed there.
Does WisdomTree have prior experience with crypto products?
Yes. WisdomTree provides management services to European ETP issuers whose ranges include cryptocurrency strategies, and runs a broader digital-asset business spanning tokenised real-world assets, stablecoins, digital funds, the WisdomTree Connect institutional platform and the WisdomTree Prime wallet. Its digital-asset products held $761 million of AUM at 30 June 2026.
How does BTCW compare to ARKB?
ARKB charges 0.21% — 4 bp less — and held $1.889bn of net assets at 30 June 2026 against BTCW's $136.5m, roughly fourteen times the size. ARKB also spreads custody across four custodians where BTCW uses Coinbase Custody alone. On fee, size and custody, ARKB is ahead.
Is BTCW likely to be shut down?
There is no announced plan to close it, and WisdomTree continues to operate the fund. That said, it is the smallest fund in the category, and funds with persistently low assets are the ones issuers revisit first when the economics stop working. Nothing in the current filings suggests a wind-down.
Sources and further reading
- WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund, Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2026 and Form 10-K for 2025 — sec.gov/Archives/edgar (CIK 0001850391).
- WisdomTree, Inc., Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2026 — sec.gov (CIK 0000880631).
- Internal: ARK 21Shares ARKB review, Bitcoin ETF expense ratios compared, How Bitcoin ETF custody works.
