Given its extraordinary long-term price appreciation, you’ve decided that perhaps it’s time to consider adding exposure to Bitcoin (BTC +2.95%) in your portfolio. The smartest investors are looking at ways to upgrade performance. Now might be as good a time as any, since the leading digital asset is 44% off its all-time high from October 2025 (as of March 10).
There are different ways to play the game. You can choose to buy Bitcoin directly. Or maybe it’s worth taking a closer look at the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT 0.30%), the biggest spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) with assets of $57 billion.
What is the better investment choice in 2026 and beyond?
Image source: Getty Images.
Investing in Bitcoin in the purest way
Bitcoin’s biggest supporters believe owning the asset directly is the best course of action, as it plays to this being a digital bearer asset that should have zero counterparty risk and that lives outside of the traditional financial system. In the same way that a physical dollar bill is yours if it’s in your possession, Bitcoin is handled the same way.
Unlike with having dollars bills in your pocket, there is a learning curve for holding Bitcoin. You must be comfortable managing a crypto wallet and self-custody, like a cold storage solution not accessible to anyone else. In this way, you act as your own personal banker. That doesn’t appeal to everybody. But remember that if you lose your private keys, then there is no way to recover the Bitcoin.
But the Bitcoin can be spent and traded. It can earn yield. And it can be pledged as collateral for a loan. When it comes time to pay taxes, though, things can get complicated. It will be important to maintain records that keep track of your cost basis and transaction fees, which can require more effort.
Today’s Change
(2.95%) $2055.52
Current Price
$71851.00
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$1.4T
Day’s Range
$69460.00 – $71952.00
52wk Range
$60255.56 – $126079.89
Volume
49B
Some investors only want price exposure
The iShares Bitcoin Trust, along with other similar ETFs, was approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission in January 2024 in what was a breakthrough moment for Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency had finally arrived on Wall Street. And it was accepted by regulators.
This has been an extremely successful product launch in the world of financial markets, which clearly indicates the amount of pent-up demand for a compliance-friendly investment vehicle that owns and tracks the price movement of Bitcoin and that trades on a regular stock exchange. There could be investors who control large pensions or endowments, for example, that have strict mandates forbidding them from holding Bitcoin directly.
BlackRock doesn’t offer all of this for free. To benefit from this convenience, the iShares Bitcoin Trust carries an annual expense ratio of 0.25%. A hypothetical $10,000 investment would result in $25 in fees. Over time, this can add up. Direct Bitcoin owners avoid this.
Today’s Change
(-0.30%) $-0.12
Current Price
$39.95
Key Data Points
Day’s Range
$39.31 – $40.08
52wk Range
$35.30 – $71.82
Volume
719K
Conviction and effort
The better investment opportunity between these two depends on your situation. If you’re extremely bullish on Bitcoin becoming a global reserve currency one day, achieving and evolving from a store of value to a widely accepted medium of exchange, then you will want to own the crypto directly. This way, you can actually use it. You can’t spend shares in an ETF to buy a cup of coffee.
To add fuel to the argument that owning Bitcoin directly is the best path, think about when President Franklin D. Roosevelt forced people to surrender their private gold holdings to the government to stabilize the economy in 1933. Confiscation is much harder to enforce when you hold the private keys of a purely digital asset yourself, instead of relying on a large financial institution that might be forced to comply with possible government overreach if macro conditions deteriorate to that point.
That type of scenario, while possible, is hard to predict from today’s vantage point. So, there are some market participants who simply want price exposure. It’s hard to argue with the iShares Bitcoin Trust in this instance.