6 min readNearly all professional ETH ETF adoption is coming from the same firms already deeply exposed to Bitcoin ETFs. We’ve found that 92% of the ETH ETF AUM from 13F filers in Q1 2025 is held by institutions that also report holdings in Bitcoin ETFs. Yet only 24% of BTC ETF filers hold ETH ETFs — meaning that, at least for now, ETH adoption is quite narrow among professional managers, and highly concentrated in the largest and most crypto-friendly allocators.
This report gives detail on this overlap, quantifies the ETH-to-BTC allocation ratio among allocators, and identifies the institutions leading the charge into ETH ETFs. It also provides some visualizations that unpack what 13F filing data can tell us about institutional ETH ETF behaviors.
Summary
A. Overlap between ETH and BTC ETF filers is high
92% of ETH ETF Filing AUM belongs to firms that also hold BTC ETFs.
However, only 24% of BTC ETF filers have added ETH ETFs to their portfolios.
Although, these overlapping firms represent 61% of total BTC ETF Filing AUM
The result is that the upper echelon of BTC allocators form a tightly clustered group that hold a very significant chunk of the ETH ownership base.
Our Takeaway: ETH ETF interest is still early and not dispersed; the largest and most crypto-savvy institutions are the only ones stepping into ETH, but they are doing so with some conviction. You’ll see next that hundreds of millions are committed to ETH exposure at these firms.
B. Top ETH allocators also allocate to BTC
To control for size, we ranked institutions with at least $100M in BTC ETFs by their ETH exposure:
These institutions have nominally meaningful positions in both BTC and ETH within the US ETF complex. However, these are major allocators well established outside of crypto, so, while these numbers may appear large, in context they represent <1% of their portfolio makeup — institutions are still just dipping their toe into the crypto sector.
C. Surprising discrepancy between AUM and institutional uptake
Looking on a product by product basis made for a surprising gap between total AUM and institutional ownership as reported via 13F filings:
Grayscale’s ETHE — at the time of the 13F filing — still slightly held the largest AUM, but it was by far not the most institutionally owned product. Only $149.7M of its ~$2.3B AUM is held by 13F filers.
In contrast, BlackRock’s ETHA ETF had slightly lower AUM (~$2.2B) but dominated institutional portfolios with $496.6M reported via 13F — 3.3x more than Grayscale.
The 4th-largest ETH ETF by AUM is ETHU, a 2x leveraged Ethereum fund.
The prominence of this leverage ETF AUM stands out given that leveraged Bitcoin ETFs do not occupy similarly high AUM ranks, which we think suggests:
High retail demand for ETH leverage (perhaps as a cheaper alternative to options or margin)
A lack of high beta proxy vehicles, at least for now, like MicroStrategy for Ethereum — MSTR seems to play this role for BTC, especially among retail investors
Our Takeaway: The ETH ETF market is structurally different from BTC — institutions prefer traditional issuers (BlackRock, Fidelity), yet the main legacy product (ETHE) and leverage vehicle (ETHU) are holding demand.
Closing remarks
The main takeaway should be that ETH ETF adoption isn’t happening in isolation. The institutions moving into Ethereum today could be, overwhelmingly, the same ones that already hold Bitcoin ETFs. While two very different assets, with very different fundamental investment cases, ETH is finding itself as a natural extension of existing crypto strategies, not a separate bet.
With that said, it wouldn’t surprise us to start seeing asset managers view this data as an opportunity to cross-sell ETH products to BTC clients, who have already shown they’re willing to support crypto exposure in the early stages of product release. Still, most BTC ETF filers haven’t made the jump to ETH. Watching which of these firms begin to allocate in future quarters will be telling in understanding whether Ethereum is viewed as mature enough for institutional portfolios.
To us it doesn’t feel that long ago when we were discussing whether the SEC would deem ETH as an unregistered security. Now, we’re nearly a month away from a full year of US ETH ETFs. It would be silly to think we aren’t still in the early days of professionals discussing digital assets as a whole, and these conversations very often start with Bitcoin. We think many investment committees are likely still asking themselves how much further out on the risk curve is ETH compared to BTC?
We will continue tracking quarterly 13F filings for updates. If Ethereum becomes a second core crypto holding, these filings will tell the story. Something worth noting is that the ETH ETFs have had a strong start to Q2, with global net inflows of $1.8bn, bringing it to positive $2.2bn on the year. We hope these are lasting allocations, and the next round of filings in Mid-July will tell the story.
