Spot Bitcoin ETFs to Buy With $100 and Hold Forever
iShares, Fidelity, and Bitwise offer the most accessible spot Bitcoin ETFs for new crypto investors.
The iShares Bitcoin ETF is the largest and most liquid option in the market.
Bitwise donates a portion of ETF profits to support Bitcoin's core developers.
10 stocks we like better than iShares Bitcoin Trust ›
Traditional-minded investors have been able to invest in Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) via exchange-traded funds (ETFs) since January 2024. There are 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs on the market today, and they are pretty much the same thing in many ways. But if you want to get started with Bitcoin investing from this angle, putting a modest $100 to work for the long haul, I can't recommend all 11 ETFs.
Some of the funds are lightly traded and not widely held. Getting a fair price for these ETFs is a bit more difficult, and you never know how long the fund's sponsor will continue to manage an unpopular fund.
Others are priced above $100. Some stock brokerages will let you buy fractional shares of stocks and ETFs, but others don't. So if you have a strict $100 Bitcoin investing budget, these funds may be out of reach right now.
Being index funds at heart, most of these spot Bitcoin ETFs come with minimal expense ratios. However, a few funds charge much higher management fees, making them unsuitable for long-term investing.
These filters leave me with a short list of three suitable spot Bitcoin ETFs. These are the Bitcoin-tracking funds an intrepid long-term investor can buy for less than $100 as of May 19, 2025.
The three funds under my microscope have delivered almost identical returns over the last year -- as expected. After all, they are all trying to match the real-time price changes of the underlying Bitcoin asset.
They do it in slightly different ways, though. The market-leading iShares Bitcoin Trust (NASDAQ: IBIT) and the smaller Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (NYSEMKT: BITB) are true index funds, basing their Bitcoin price estimates on the same price-tracking index. The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (NYSEMKT: FBTC), on the other hand, generates its own Bitcoin price reports by spot-checking six large cryptocurrency exchanges. The results are similar, and both methods are robust; Fidelity just does a bit more homework than the other two fund managers.
The iShares, Bitwise, and Fidelity Bitcoin funds all come with reasonable management fees. There are some surprises in this area, though.
You might expect Fidelity to charge a little more to cover the company's more intense Bitcoin price tracking. Bitwise and iShares simply look at an official index, while Fidelity checks Bitcoin prices at six trading exchanges every 15 seconds. But the Fidelity ETF's management fees are 0.25%, exactly matching the iShares fund's expense rate. As it turns out, Fidelity automates its more direct price-tracking system.
The lowest fee in this trio comes from the Bitwise fund, where the annual expense rate stops at 0.20%. The Bitwise team simply pockets slightly lower profits than financial powerhouses like Fidelity and iShares manager BlackRock do.
Furthermore, Bitwise donates 10% of its gross profits to Bitcoin's core developers. This way, Bitwise and this Bitcoin ETF's investors provide some direct financial support to keep the Bitcoin system safe, secure, and up to date.
A $100 investment is a small bet for so-called Bitcoin maximalists, who expect the cryptocurrency to deliver massive returns over time. Buying Bitcoin directly is always an option, though you need to open and fund an account with a crypto-trading platform first. These three ETFs discussed should be available on any stock-trading service. They are reasonable investment vehicles for investors just dipping their toes in the cryptocurrency pool for the first time.
The iShares Bitcoin ETF is the largest and most liquid option. Everybody knows the iShares name, managed by financial services giant BlackRock. There's a sense of additional security in relying on the most popular option.
Fidelity is also a well-known financial services name, giving its spot Bitcoin ETF a sheen of extra credibility. Going the extra mile to generate Bitcoin price reports can also be a selling point.
Finally, Bitwise entered this discussion from a different angle. The company was a crypto expert first, and an ETF manager much later. I like this team's commitment to supporting the Bitcoin developer community, and you can't go wrong with the lowest available management fees.
Any of these three spot Bitcoin ETFs can serve as effective starting points for new Bitcoin investors. You can't go wrong with any of them, as long as you accept the price swings and volatility that come with Bitcoin investments in 2025.
Before you buy stock in iShares Bitcoin Trust, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and iShares Bitcoin Trust wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $642,582!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $829,879!*
Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 975% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join .
See the 10 stocks »
*Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025
Anders Bylund has positions in Bitcoin, Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Trust, and iShares Bitcoin Trust. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs to Buy With $100 and Hold Forever was originally published by The Motley Fool
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
3 Cryptocurrency Investor Trends You Need to Know for the Second Half of 2025
According to a new Motley Fool Money crypto survey, investors remain bullish on crypto. A majority of crypto investors think Bitcoin could double in value to $200,000 this year. The launch of new spot ETFs for Solana and XRP could help attract new investors looking for an easy way to buy crypto. 10 stocks we like better than Bitcoin › It's been a strange year for the crypto market. After a hot start to 2025, every major cryptocurrency continues to be whipsawed by the constant ups and downs of tariffs and global trade. What can investors expect in the second half of the year? According to the new Motley Fool Money 2025 Cryptocurrency Investor Trends Survey, investors remain bullish on the future prospects of crypto, especially Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). Let's take a closer look. Bitcoin has been front and center throughout the year. Even with the volatility of the current tariff situation, investors remain very bullish about the cryptocurrency's prospects. According to the Motley Fool Money 2025 Cryptocurrency Investor Trends survey, 68% of U.S. adults who currently hold crypto in their portfolio think that Bitcoin could hit $200,000 by the end of 2025. Based on its current price of $105,000, that suggests that Bitcoin could double in value over the next six months. Even U.S. adults who don't own crypto in their portfolios are surprisingly bullish about Bitcoin. For example, 25% of them also think that Bitcoin could hit $200,000 by the end of 2025. Another 49% are undecided. Only 26% think it's unlikely. As a result, investors are likely to continue to buy the dip for the rest of the year. Anytime Bitcoin loses 10% or more of its value, they'll view it as a buying opportunity. And, indeed, this is what we've already seen in the first half of the year, with money continuing to flow into the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from retail investors. Currently, only Bitcoin and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) have spot ETFs. However, one big story of the year has been the potential for other major cryptocurrencies to get spot ETFs of their own. Two that are often mentioned are Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP). These new spot ETFs could be a game changer. They make buying crypto as easy as buying your favorite tech stock. You can open up an app on your phone, hit a button, and get exposure to Bitcoin instantly. According to the Motley Fool Money crypto survey, "I don't understand how to buy it" remains one of the major barriers to investing in crypto, and spot ETFs help solve this problem. That leads me to think there will be a rally in Solana and XRP later in the year. That's when the SEC is scheduled to sign off on new spot ETF applications for both cryptos. As soon as these start trading, it could lead to a wave of new investor money flowing into them. Ethereum is still the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, and continues to be an important part of the White House's crypto strategy. So why does Ethereum continue to lag the market? Even after a mini-rally in May, Ethereum is still down 20% for the year. By parsing the data and responses in Motley Fool Money's crypto survey, I might have uncovered the answer: Investors just don't like Ethereum. They can't figure out what to do with it, and it doesn't generate the sort of big, splashy news headlines that can grab their attention. According to the survey, 36% of respondents who don't own crypto said they "don't know what to do with it." Overall, only 11% of respondents said they understood how crypto works. Bitcoin is easy to explain -- it's "digital gold." But what, exactly, is Ethereum? Moreover, survey respondents appeared to show a clear preference for big, splashy news headlines. For example, as soon as Bitcoin hit the $100,000 price level, it immediately helped to pull in investors who might have otherwise ignored crypto. Bitcoin hitting $100,000 is the type of headline that's tailor-made to float across the chyron of a TV. Or, take the example of Elon Musk joining the Trump administration earlier this year. Even though Musk had no direct role in the White House's crypto policies, the overwhelming sentiment of survey respondents was that just having him aboard would somehow be good for crypto. Ethereum hasn't been able to deliver anything close to a splashy $100,000 news headline or a high-profile public figure like Elon Musk. The biggest news this year has been a new blockchain upgrade in May. As a result, investors just aren't interested. Ethereum may continue to underperform the market until a new narrative emerges. In the crypto market, sentiment can change on a dime. Now that Musk has left the White House, for example, will investors become more or less bullish on crypto? And how long are investors willing to wait for Bitcoin to double in value, if it shows signs of stumbling over the summer? That being said, the new Motley Fool Money crypto survey is a great temperature check on what crypto investors are thinking right now. Using the survey response data, it's possible to put together some compelling narratives about where Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP might be headed in the second half of 2025. Before you buy stock in Bitcoin, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Bitcoin wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $868,615!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 Dominic Basulto has positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 3 Cryptocurrency Investor Trends You Need to Know for the Second Half of 2025 was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
The Best Dividend ETFs for Your Portfolio
Dividend investors looking to simplify their investment lives have a host of ETF options. There are ETFs for dividend growth or high yield -- or that combine both. The list of four dividend ETFs below has yields of up to 4.5%. 10 stocks we like better than Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF › Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have changed the face of investing, helping investors to conveniently simplify their lives at low cost. But there are so many ETFs at this point that it can be confusing to find the ones that are best for your portfolio. Here are four of the best dividend ETFs for your portfolio if you lean toward dividend investing. The first ETF up is the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (NYSEMKT: VIG). It has the lowest yield here at around 1.8%. That's pretty miserly, but it is still notably higher than the 1.3% dividend yield of the S&P 500 index. The interesting overlay here is that, like the S&P 500 index, the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF owns a fairly large number of stocks, with around 300 holdings. The ETF's construction is fairly simple. The first step is to create a list of all U.S. companies that have increased their dividends annually for at least a decade. Then the highest-yielding 25% of the companies are eliminated (high yield is clearly not the focus here). The companies that are left are put into the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF with a market-cap weighting. The ETF hasn't kept pace with the S&P 500 index over time, but if you like the idea of a broadly diversified portfolio filled with stocks that have a history of regularly hiking their dividends, this could be the right ETF for you. Notably, the dividend has doubled over the past decade, which suggests that a lower starting yield can still have a big income effect if you hold this ETF for the long term. Next up is the Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (NYSEMKT: VYM). This exchange-traded fund is pretty simple, too. It takes all of the dividend-paying stocks on U.S. exchanges and then buys the 50% of the list with the highest yields. The portfolio is weighted by market cap. This ETF has over 500 holdings, so its portfolio is even more diversified than the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF. The dividend yield is around 2.9%. Given the focus on yield here, the Vanguard High Dividend ETF has lagged the S&P 500 index over time by an even greater amount than the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF. But if your goal is to maximize the income your portfolio generates, it could be a great foundational investment. Essentially, these two Vanguard ETFs offer wide diversification and dividends in ways that will meet the investment needs of dividend growth investors and, in this situation, high yield investors. The SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 High Dividend ETF (NYSEMKT: SPYD), meanwhile, allows you to stick with S&P 500 index stocks, but do so with a high-yield focus. It simply buys the 80 highest-yielding S&P 500 stocks, weighting them equally. Equal weighting allows each stock to affect performance to the same degree and helps to reduce the risk that any one stock will overly hamper performance. The dividend yield is an attractive 4.5%, the highest on this list. Don't buy this ETF looking for material dividend growth over time. The dividend is going to make up a material portion of an investor's total return, but it hasn't risen much over time. However, if you want to maximize income with a hand-selected portfolio of large market capitalization and economically important businesses, the SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 High Dividend ETF should be a top contender. The Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (NYSEMKT: SCHD) is by far the most complicated ETF on this list. But it might also be the most attractive, as it manages to mix dividend growth with an attractively high yield. The process starts with the list of companies that have increased their dividends annually for 10 consecutive years. A composite score is created for each of the companies that includes cash flow to total debt, return on equity, dividend yield, and a company's five-year dividend growth rate. The 100 highest-rated companies get included in the ETF and are market-cap weighted. The end result has been a strongly performing share price, a growing dividend payment, and, today, a roughly 4% yield. The Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF isn't the most diversified, and it isn't the highest-yielding. But it provides a very attractive mix of the two. And, interestingly, it has managed to grow its dividend at a faster clip than the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF. For many dividend investors, the Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF's approach of using a fairly complex composite score to select stocks will be the most attractive choice. That said, investors need to recognize that this ETF isn't a simple one to understand. If you don't buy into the screening approach, you probably shouldn't buy the ETF. Everyone has a slightly different approach to investing. This quartet of dividend-focused ETFs offers up four different dividend investing styles -- from dividend growth to high yield, and a notable choice that successfully manages to bring different investment tactics into one complex and high-yielding ETF. If you are looking for the best dividend ETF for your portfolio, one of these four ETFs will likely be exactly what you are trying to find. Before you buy stock in Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $868,615!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF and Vanguard Whitehall Funds-Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. The Best Dividend ETFs for Your Portfolio was originally published by The Motley Fool
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Fidelity's Forever Funds: ETFs Designed for Long-Term Growth
The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund makes it easy to invest in the cryptocurrency. The Fidelity Cloud Computing ETF takes advantage of the growth in cloud infrastructure. These two ETFs give you growth and stability in two promising areas with long-term potential. 10 stocks we like better than Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund › Warren Buffett has long preached the virtues of long-term investing. Buying for the long haul provides plenty of advantages, especially when it comes to compounding and minimizing tax implications. Right now, two Fidelity ETFs seem perfectly designed to provide maximum returns over a long time horizon. Most investors don't own any cryptocurrency. And there's good reason for that. Volatility makes most cryptocurrency investments unviable for those seeking safe and reliable returns. Plus, the process of buying and selling cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin can be far too complicated for most people. That's why the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (NYSEMKT: FBTC) is so attractive. For an expense ratio of just 0.25%, investors can get direct exposure to the crypto without the complex tasks of self-custody and tax tracking. It can take a lot of education to wrap your head around cryptocurrencies and their potential. The industry is rife with misinformation and misleading promises. But Bitcoin, arguably the original cryptocurrency, is a proven and relatively simple asset. Think of it as digital gold. There are only so many bitcoins in circulation at any given time. And while there is some marginal inflation over time, its total supply is capped, just as there is only so much gold in the ground to dig up. To be sure, the crypto has significantly more volatility than gold. But it arguably has more upside as well. Its total market capitalization right now is around $2.2 trillion. Gold's total market cap, meanwhile, is above $23 trillion. So compared to gold, Bitcoin could have 1,000% more upside to go. And that doesn't even include its value as a transactional currency, an advantage gold is fairly limited in. Expect a lot of volatility here, but investing even just 1% of your assets into Bitcoin might boost your portfolio's total upside potential significantly. Fidelity's Wide Origin Bitcoin Fund makes adding that exposure as easy as buying any other exchange-traded fund (ETF). If you're looking for high growth potential with traditional stocks, however, check out the promising new ETF below. Looking to maximize your chances for long-term growth? Consider the Fidelity Cloud Computing ETF (NYSEMKT: FCLD). It's relatively new and shouldn't replace broad market indexes like those that track the S&P 500. But there's no denying that it could add huge long-term potential to any portfolio. As its name suggests, the Fidelity Cloud Computing ETF invests primarily in businesses that operate cloud computing infrastructure, like Oracle and Microsoft. It also invests in cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) stocks like Salesforce. Cloud computing is perhaps one of the biggest sectors that will benefit from the AI revolution. The United Nations predicts that the market will grow from $189 billion in 2023 to nearly $5 trillion by 2033. Much of that value will accrue to cloud computing businesses. Why? It has everything to do with how AI is trained and deployed. Artificial intelligence requires a lot of computing power. Instead of building this infrastructure themselves, most developers and businesses outsource it to cloud infrastructure businesses like Microsoft's Azure division. And when it comes to using AI features, most of them will be deployed via cloud SaaS like Salesforce. From hardware to software, cloud computing businesses will benefit strongly from rising AI demand, which is expected to increase at more than 30% per year for the next decade or more. Fidelity's Cloud Computing ETF isn't perfect. It does have a relatively high expense ratio of 0.4%. And betting on a single sector isn't for every investor. But if you're looking to build a portfolio with high long-term potential without the complexity of managing individual positions, this ETF looks like a reasonable bet. Before you buy stock in Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $868,615!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 Ryan Vanzo has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Fidelity's Forever Funds: ETFs Designed for Long-Term Growth was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
