A coin or a fund that holds it
Two ways to hold the same price: the coin itself, or shares of a listed fund that holds the coin. They differ in what you own, who holds it, on which days it has a price and which costs apply.
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Where it misleads
This page describes the two and measures what you hold; it does not say which is better, or whether to hold either. A fund's price can differ slightly from the value of the coin it holds, and its annual fee comes out of its value every day; holding the coin directly has other costs, set by where it is kept. Tax and legal treatment differ by country and are not measured here.
Compared with
- Why we measure crypto on weekdays: 365 versus 252 — the coin is folded onto the weekday table; a fund is not
- Falls of three quarters, and the way back — the coin's own falls, which a fund that holds it follows less its fee
- Physical metal or futures: what a commodity product holds — the same question for gold: what the product holds decides how it behaves
- Look-through — how the holdings of a fund are added to what you hold directly
How it is computed here
A coin held directly is written as its pair (BTC-USD), has a price every day and is measured on weekdays with the weekend counted on Monday. A listed fund that holds a coin (an ETP) is a share like any other: priced on exchange sessions, not folded, and labelled 'through an ETP' inside the same Digital assets class. Both are measured at their market price.
Worked example
- ORB-USD: the coin itself, priced every day and measured on weekdays.
- It is 6.1% of the demo portfolio's money and 7.7% of its risk, measured at market price.
Demo portfolio: seven invented holdings, generated prices, measured by the real engine. Past returns do not predict future ones.
Where it misleads
This page describes the two and measures what you hold; it does not say which is better, or whether to hold either. A fund's price can differ slightly from the value of the coin it holds, and its annual fee comes out of its value every day; holding the coin directly has other costs, set by where it is kept. Tax and legal treatment differ by country and are not measured here.
Every price on this page is invented. The coin and the index fund are two series generated for this lesson from a fixed seed: they are not any real coin or fund, and none of the figures is market data. The coin is not the Orbit (ORB-USD) that the example portfolio of this site holds: it is a separate invented series, so the figures here are not that portfolio's.
Two ways to hold the same price
| The coin, held directly | A fund that holds it | |
|---|---|---|
| What you own | the coin itself: units on its own network | shares of a fund or trust; the coin is not yours to send |
| Who holds the coin | you, if the keys are yours; otherwise the exchange or wallet service where you keep it | the fund's custodian, named in the fund's documents |
| When it has a price | every day of the year | when its exchange is open: about 250 days a year |
| Costs | those of where it is kept: spread and fees where you trade it, network fees when you move it, custody fees if there are any | the fund's annual fee, taken out of its value every day, and your broker's own costs |
| The price | the coin's own, in dollars or euros | the fund's market price, which can differ slightly from the value of the coin it holds |
| Measured here as | BTC-USD: weekday closes, the weekend counted on Monday, 261 periods a year for coins alone | its ticker: session closes, nothing folded, 252 periods a year |
Both sit in the Digital assets class, and the panel of each says which it is: held directly, or through an ETP. A bare BTC is ambiguous, because it is also the ticker of a listed fund, so the ledger asks you to write BTC-USD for the coin or BTC.US for the fund.
A worked example: one weekend
In the twelve months from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026 there were 52 weekends, counted from Friday's close to Sunday's. On 46 of them the invented coin moved less than 5%. The largest move is the weekend of Friday 18 September 2026, 30,452.30, to Sunday 20 September 2026, 27,706.63: −9.0%.
A fund that holds the coin has one price for that Friday and no other until Monday's session; the coin had two closes in between. On the weekday table the coin's move arrives in Monday's row, and a fund's Monday return starts from its own Friday close. Over a long stretch the two follow the same price, less the fund's fee and any gap between its price and the value of the coin it holds, and day by day they differ by the hours at which each one closes.
What it changes in your numbers
- Volatility, correlation and falls of a coin are measured on weekdays with the weekend counted on Monday; a fund's, on exchange sessions.
- A coin and a fund that holds it can both be in one portfolio, and the Digital assets class adds them together: the class table says how much of your money and of your risk they are.
- Nothing here says which to hold, or whether to hold either. Tax and legal treatment differ by country and are not measured on this site.
Compared with
- Why we measure crypto on weekdays: 365 versus 252 — the coin is folded onto the weekday table; a fund is not
- Falls of three quarters, and the way back — the coin's own falls, which a fund that holds it follows less its fee
- Physical metal or futures: what a commodity product holds — the same question for gold: what the product holds decides how it behaves
- Look-through — how the holdings of a fund are added to what you hold directly
Questions people ask
Is a fund's price the same as the coin's?
Close, not identical. The fund trades at its own market price, which can sit slightly above or below the value of the coin it holds, and its annual fee comes out of its value every day.
Which of the two is measured better here?
Neither. Both are measured at market price on their own calendar, and the panel says which one you hold. This page does not say which is better, or whether to hold either.
Does Sphinx Risk buy, hold or sell either of them?
No. It measures what you already hold elsewhere. It does not buy, sell, hold, lend or stake anything, and it never connects to anything with the power to trade.
Sources
- Invented series (a coin and an index fund), generated for this lesson from a fixed seed and reproducible in the project's tests; no market data
Last reviewed 3 Oct 2026 by Sphinx Risk.