Looking For a Crypto ETF With Upside Potential? These 3 ETFs Are Worth a Closer Look.

If you want to invest in a crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) with room to run, there are a few options that should be at the top of your list, like the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (NYSEMKT: BSOL), the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (NASDAQ: IBIT), and the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (NASDAQ: ETHA).

Let's first establish why these three funds have significant upside potential at this moment in particular, and then take a look at what you'd be getting with each.

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Now's a good time to be shopping

As of Sept. 29, Bitcoin was 33% below its $126,080 all-time high, Ethereum is 46% below its $4,946 peak, and Solana was about 60% below its record high of $293. All three of these records were set in 2025.

Not one of these three coins is priced at a hype premium right now. If anything, they have plenty of room to run before they start to look overheated.

The ETFs that hold them are therefore positioned to experience a lot of inflows, provided that the factors that drove their relatively recent run-ups, or new drivers, are in play.

These ETFs are important bellwethers for the crypto majors

The Bitcoin fund's $66.8 billion in net assets makes up a lion's share of the $107.8 billion held by all U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs as of Sept. 30.

During the crypto bear market, in the period from Dec. 31, 2025, to June 30, 2026, its net assets fell by 36%. Its shares outstanding (which correspond to the fund units that investors hold) fell by just 4.6%. In other words, prices changed for the worse, but most holders stayed. By Sept. 30, the share count had climbed to above June's total, right as its cumulative net inflows reached $65 billion.

The Ethereum ETF has flightier holders. Its shares outstanding declined by 22% in the first half of 2026, then jumped 36% by Sept. 28.

The Ethereum ETF doesn't offer staking (locking coins in exchange for a trickle of new coins). Its sibling, the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF, does have staking, with 30-day rewards of 1.35%. Keep in mind that the IRS counts staking rewards as taxable income in the year you receive them.

The Solana ETF is the only one of the three funds that pays a yield, with a 5.5% net reward rate. So far, it has drawn in an overwhelming proportion of all cumulative net capital inflows to U.S. spot Solana funds. But one of the important details here is that its yield will likely shrink.

In August 2026, Solana stakers approved the governance measure called SIMD-0550, which speeds up the decline in new coin issuance over the long term. After its activation, which will likely occur in early 2027, the baseline reward rate will decline from 5.8% to about 4.3% within a year, and then reach a rate of 2.2% in about 2029.

With issuance bottoming at 1.5% a year, most of that yield will go to preventing your slice of Solana from being diluted so much. But there isn't really any Solana ETF that does this any better.

Which crypto ETFs fit your portfolio, and how should they be weighted?

If you were to split $1,000 across these three crypto ETFs, a good move is to put $600 into the Bitcoin fund, with the Solana and Ethereum ETFs splitting the rest evenly.

The fact that the Bitcoin fund's holders seem willing to retain their shares through downturns in Bitcoin's price is nice, but the real reason it deserves the larger weighting is that Bitcoin itself is probably the safest major cryptocurrency to invest in, and it won't be going anywhere. Ethereum and Solana, although strong players, both need to compete against myriad rivals to succeed, and over the very long term, they might lose, so their allocation needs to be smaller.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and iShares Bitcoin Trust. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and iShares Bitcoin Trust. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.