Purpose Bitcoin ETF holds $1.74 billion in assets
Purpose Bitcoin ETF maintains the highest AUM in Canada, with $1.74 billion CAD and 18,383.34 BTC as of August 19, 2026.
Jean-Philippe Bergeron 5 min read
More than five years after it opened for trading, the Purpose Bitcoin ETF is still the biggest Bitcoin fund listed in Canada. As of August 19, 2026, the fund held $1.74 billion CAD in assets under management, backed by 18,383.34 BTC held on behalf of unitholders.
The fund that got there first
Purpose Investments Inc. formed the Purpose Bitcoin ETF on February 18, 2021 and listed it on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker BTCC. At launch it was the world’s first Bitcoin ETF backed by physically settled Bitcoin, meaning the fund buys and holds actual bitcoin for unitholders rather than tracking the price through futures contracts or other derivative exposure. That structural detail was the point of the product: an investor could get bitcoin exposure inside a registered account through an ordinary brokerage, and the fund would hold the underlying asset directly.
The launch also marked a moment where Canadian regulators moved ahead of their American counterparts. Canada began approving spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2021, while the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission did not approve spot Bitcoin ETFs for its own market until January 2024. For roughly three years, Canadian-listed funds were among the most accessible regulated spot Bitcoin vehicles available to retail investors in North America.
What a physically settled ETF actually means
The “physically settled” description in the fund’s own history is worth unpacking, because the alternative approaches that existed at the time it launched worked quite differently. A futures-based Bitcoin fund does not hold any bitcoin at all; it holds contracts that derive their value from bitcoin’s price on a futures exchange, contracts that need to be periodically rolled forward as they approach expiry, a process that can introduce a persistent cost drag known as roll yield if the futures market is priced in a particular structure relative to the spot price. A physically settled fund like Purpose Bitcoin ETF sidesteps that entirely: the fund’s custodian holds actual bitcoin, and the ETF’s unit price is designed to track the fund’s net asset value, which moves directly with the spot price of the bitcoin held rather than with a derivatives market that can drift away from spot pricing over time. That structural difference is part of why physically settled spot products were, from the start, viewed as the more direct and more capital-efficient way to get bitcoin exposure through a regulated fund wrapper.
What the current numbers show
The $1.74 billion figure is a snapshot of a fund whose reported assets move with the bitcoin price by design. The more durable number for tracking the product itself is the BTC count: 18,383.34 bitcoin as of the same date. Coin holdings change when investors create or redeem units, and when management fees are paid out of the fund’s assets, so the holdings figure gives a cleaner read on flows than the dollar total does.
Purpose Bitcoin ETF currently carries the highest AUM of any Bitcoin ETF in the Canadian market. It is not the only one; several Canadian issuers launched competing spot Bitcoin products in the same 2021 window and afterward. But BTCC’s first-mover position and the assets it gathered early have kept it at the top of the domestic table.
Hedged and non-hedged units
The fund is offered in both a currency-hedged and a non-hedged version, a distinction that matters more than it first appears for Canadian investors. Bitcoin is priced globally in U.S. dollars, so a Canadian holding an unhedged bitcoin fund is exposed to two things at once: the price of bitcoin and the CAD/USD exchange rate. If the loonie strengthens against the U.S. dollar, that currency move can offset part of a bitcoin gain, and if it weakens, it can add to one.
The hedged units aim to strip that second variable out, leaving something closer to pure bitcoin price exposure in Canadian dollar terms. The non-hedged units leave the currency exposure in place. Neither is inherently the better choice, and hedging carries its own costs, but the decision is a real one that an investor makes at the point of purchase rather than something the fund resolves on their behalf.
What a registered account changes
Part of the reason a fund structure like this matters to Canadian investors specifically is the account it can sit inside. Holding bitcoin directly, through a personal wallet or an exchange account, sits outside registered account types like RRSPs and TFSAs, meaning any gains are taxed in the ordinary, non-sheltered way and any losses get no special treatment either. A bitcoin ETF listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, by contrast, is an eligible investment for those same registered accounts in the way any other exchange-traded fund is, which lets an investor hold bitcoin exposure inside a TFSA and shelter any gains from tax entirely, or inside an RRSP and defer tax until withdrawal. That accessibility, buying bitcoin exposure through the same brokerage account and the same registered account types used for stocks and conventional ETFs, was as much a part of the original appeal of a fund like Purpose Bitcoin ETF as the underlying asset itself.
Why it still matters
BTCC’s size makes it a reasonable proxy for how much regulated, exchange-traded bitcoin exposure Canadian investors are holding through the domestic market rather than through offshore exchanges or self-custody. The fund’s holdings are published and tracked by third parties, so the figure is checkable in a way that most crypto ownership data is not.
This article is general information, not investment advice. Bitcoin and Bitcoin ETFs carry substantial risk, and anyone considering a position should review the fund’s own prospectus and, where appropriate, speak with a licensed advisor.
Fees are also worth reading rather than assuming, since a fund’s management expense ratio applies whether the underlying asset rises or falls and compounds over a long holding period in a way that’s easy to underestimate. A physically settled fund additionally carries its own custody and security costs, insuring and safeguarding actual bitcoin rather than tracking a paper contract, and those costs are baked into the fee an investor pays rather than itemized separately. None of that makes the fund structure worse than holding bitcoin directly; it simply means the convenience of a registered-account-eligible, exchange-traded product comes with an ongoing cost that direct ownership does not carry, and that cost is the trade an investor is making in exchange for not managing private keys or custody arrangements personally.