XBTY: GRANITESHARES YIELDBOOST BITCOIN ETF

The GRANITESHARES YIELDBOOST BITCOIN ETF (ticker: XBTY) is a crypto-related ETF. It uses an option income strategy to try to generate cash for investors. This fund is designed for those looking for frequent distributions, but it has experienced significant price changes.

What the numbers show

The current price of XBTY is $5.61. An estimated price from roughly one year ago was $18.96. To help visualize the share-price decline, imagine you had $10,000 in this ETF one year ago. Based only on the share price, that amount would have dropped to approximately $2,958.44.

It is important to look at two different types of returns:

• Price Return: This measures only the change in the share price. The one-year price return was -70.41%. The year-to-date (YTD) price return was -49.92%.

• Total Return: This includes both the share price changes and the distributions paid out. The one-year total return was -37.71%, and the YTD total return was -16.45%.

Income and distribution explanation

XBTY is known for its very high distribution yield of approximately 126.54%. This means the fund pays out a large amount of cash relative to its share price. Over the last 12 months, the fund made 52 distributions, which is a frequent, weekly-like schedule. Most of these payments occurred on Fridays. The total trailing distributions for the year were $7.10 per share.

While high yields can provide cash income, they can also be misleading. A high distribution yield does not mean an investor has earned that same percentage as a total return.

NAV erosion explanation

The supplied data is sufficient to evaluate price erosion, but it does not include enough historical NAV-per-share data to confirm or rule out NAV erosion.

However, the data does show "severe price erosion." A severe erosion-risk flag was triggered because of the split-adjusted price trend and a low erosion score of 10. This indicates that the market price of the shares has dropped significantly.

Pros

• Provides very frequent cash distributions (weekly-like).

• Offers a high distribution yield.

Cons

• The ETF has experienced a large share-price decline.

• There is a severe erosion-risk flag active.

• Even with high distributions, the total return over the last year was negative.

Beginner takeaway

XBTY provides frequent cash payments, but it comes with significant risks. While the distribution yield is very high, the share price has fallen sharply. Investors should remember that receiving regular cash distributions does not guarantee that your original investment (your principal) will stay stable.