BTC
Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF
Grayscale — sponsor: Grayscale Investments Sponsors LLC
- Listing exchange
- NYSE Arca
- Sponsor fee
- 0.15% No published waiver — this is the standing rate, not a promotion with an expiry date.
- Assets
- $4.78bn Issuer figure for 1 September 2026. Fourth largest in the category.
- Bitcoin held
- 61,888 BTC As of 1 September 2026.
- Median bid-ask spread
- 0.03% 1 September 2026 — level with IBIT and FBTC.
- Custodian
- Coinbase Custody The same arrangement as GBTC, including Anchorage as an additional custodian.
- Creation/redemption
- In-kind available Unlike GBTC, which remains cash-only.
- Launched
- 31 July 2024 Seeded by spinning roughly 10% of GBTC's bitcoin, about $1.8bn, out to GBTC holders pro rata.
- Share split
- 1-for-5 reverse Effective 19 November 2024. Unadjusted per-share history is wrong.
- Options
- Yes
For a straightforward long-term holder who wants exposure and nothing else, this is arguably the strongest value proposition on the list: near-bottom fee, genuine scale, and a spread that matches funds charging more.
What the Mini Trust is
The Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF trades on NYSE Arca under the ticker BTC. It is a grantor trust holding bitcoin directly, structurally identical to the rest of the US spot Bitcoin ETF list — no futures, no leverage, no lending, no active decisions. Coinbase Custody holds the coins, which is the same arrangement its parent fund uses.
Its origin is unusual. Rather than launching from scratch and raising assets, the Mini Trust was created on 31 July 2024 by carving roughly 10% of GBTC's bitcoin — about $1.8bn at the time — into a new trust and distributing the shares pro rata to existing GBTC shareholders. Every GBTC holder woke up owning a slice of a cheap fund they had not asked for. The practical consequence is that the Mini Trust arrived with real scale on day one instead of spending two years trying to earn it.
It held 61,887.9564 BTC on 1 September 2026, worth about $4.78bn, making it the fourth largest US spot Bitcoin ETF behind IBIT, FBTC and GBTC. Grayscale's two funds together account for roughly 15% of the category.
The 0.15% and what it undercuts
The Mini Trust charges 0.15% a year. Nothing about that number is provisional: there is no published waiver, no asset threshold, no twelve-month clock. That distinction matters more than it sounds, because several funds in this category advertised themselves on introductory rates that have since lapsed. VanEck's HODL is the cautionary case — its 0% offer expired on 31 July 2026 with the fund at well under half the asset level that would have extended it. Fidelity's promotion ended in July 2024. BlackRock's ended in January 2025. The Mini Trust's 0.15% is simply what it costs.
On $50,000, 0.15% is about $75 a year. The same position in IBIT or FBTC at 0.25% costs about $125, and in GBTC at 1.50% about $750. Only Morgan Stanley's MSBT charges less, at 0.14%, and MSBT launched in April 2026 with no verified asset figure and no track record of spread behaviour under stress. That is the argument for the Mini Trust in one line: it is a basis point behind the cheapest fund on paper and several years ahead of it on evidence.
The comparison worth making carefully is against its own parent. Same sponsor, same custodian, same asset, one tenth the fee. If you are already in GBTC in a taxable account with a large gain, moving is a genuine calculation between tax now and fee forever, which we work through on the GBTC page. If you are choosing today, there is nothing to work through. The broader cost picture, spreads included, is on the fees page.
What this fund's existence actually tells you
Grayscale did not launch the Mini Trust because it wanted to make less money. It launched it because segmenting the customer base makes more. Investors who watch fees get a competitive product and stay with the brand; investors who do not keep paying 1.50%. That is rational corporate behaviour and it is worth naming plainly, because it reframes the usual question. The right thing to ask is not whether Grayscale is being generous — it is not — but whether the cheap product is genuinely good. On the numbers it is: 0.15% standing, $4.78bn of assets, a 0.03% spread and in-kind creation its own parent cannot use. You can be entirely cynical about the motive and still conclude the fund is the best value on the list.
The reverse split trap
This is the practical warning on this page, and it catches people out. A 1-for-5 reverse share split took effect on 19 November 2024. Five shares became one, and the per-share price multiplied by five overnight. Nobody's holding changed in value — that is what a split is — but the price series did.
Check before you chart
Any per-share price history for this fund that has not been adjusted for the 19 November 2024 reverse split is wrong. Unadjusted data shows a roughly 400% single-day gain that never happened. Charting tools and third-party data feeds do sometimes get corporate actions on newly listed funds wrong, and this one sits early in a short history where the error is easy to miss. If you are looking at a long-run chart of BTC, confirm that the split is reflected before you conclude anything about performance.
The same warning applies in reverse to its parent: GBTC ran a 91-for-1 forward split on 26 January 2018, so its own pre-2018 history needs the opposite adjustment. Neither event affects what your shares are worth. Both affect what a chart appears to say.
The ticker problem
The fund's ticker is BTC. Bitcoin's own conventional symbol, used by essentially every exchange, price feed and news outlet on earth, is also BTC. These are not the same thing and the order ticket does not know which one you meant.
Typing BTC into a brokerage account buys shares in a Grayscale trust listed on NYSE Arca. It does not buy bitcoin, it does not give you coins you can withdraw, and it comes with a 0.15% annual charge and US market hours. People do make this mistake, in both directions — some expecting an ETF and finding an exchange order form, others expecting bitcoin and finding a fund. The difference between the two is not cosmetic, and we set it out properly in Bitcoin ETF versus bitcoin. If it is the fund you want, how to buy a Bitcoin ETF covers the order mechanics.
Long-term holding If it was the coin you were looking forA fund with the ticker BTC is not bitcoin. If what you actually want is the asset — withdrawable, transferable, yours — that is a different purchase entirely, and a straightforward one.
Buy BitcoinCustody, in-kind and options
Coinbase Custody holds the bitcoin, with Anchorage Digital Bank named as an additional custodian — the same arrangement as GBTC. That puts the Mini Trust inside the roughly 80% of ETF-held bitcoin sitting at a single custodian, which is the category's most-discussed structural weakness. If that concentration is your main worry, FBTC self-custodies through a Fidelity affiliate and ARKB splits across three providers; the issuers and custodians page lays out who holds what.
On creation and redemption, the Mini Trust offers in-kind while GBTC does not. That is a real oddity. The SEC's in-kind order of 29 July 2025, Release 34-103571, covered funds across Nasdaq, Cboe BZX and NYSE Arca but excluded GBTC, and Grayscale's filings through 2026 still describe GBTC as cash-only. One sponsor, one custodian, two funds holding the same asset, and only the cheaper one can settle creations in bitcoin. In-kind generally supports tighter arbitrage because market makers do not have to route everything through a cash conversion the fund must then perform.
Listed options are available on the Mini Trust, though the market is nowhere near the depth of IBIT's — which is by far the largest listed bitcoin options market anywhere and remains the obvious venue for anyone building collars or writing calls. Liquidity in the shares themselves is fine for ordinary purposes: a 0.03% median spread on 1 September 2026 puts it level with funds charging considerably more.
Who this fund is for
The Mini Trust is a strong fit if you are buying bitcoin exposure to hold, you contribute occasionally, you have no intention of trading options against the position, and you would like the smallest recurring cost you can get without accepting a fund that has no history. It is the answer to the most common situation in this category and it does not get the attention it deserves, largely because it sits in the shadow of two much larger funds.
It is the wrong fit if you trade in size or use options, where IBIT's depth is not seriously challenged by anything. It is also the wrong fit if custody concentration is your dominant concern, since it sits with the same custodian as most of the industry. And it is not the answer at all if what you want is bitcoin you can move yourself, which no exchange-traded fund provides. Our opinionated picks by investor type place it against the alternatives, and how Bitcoin ETFs work covers the plumbing behind all of them.
Strengths
- 0.15% standing rate, with no waiver waiting to expire
- $4.78bn of assets and a 0.03% spread — cheap without being small
- In-kind creation available, unlike its own parent fund
- Listed options available
- Arrived with scale rather than having to build it
Weaknesses
- The 19 November 2024 reverse split breaks unadjusted price history
- Ticker BTC is routinely confused with bitcoin itself
- Coinbase Custody, so no relief from category concentration risk
- Options and share liquidity far behind IBIT
- MSBT undercuts it by a basis point, if you accept a new fund