BlackRock launched a Bitcoin yield exchange-traded fund (ETF) on June 16, 2026. The ETF, known as BITA, targets an annualized yield of 15-25% on its holdings and employs a covered call strategy to generate this yield. Since its launch, the fund has accumulated just under $50 million in total assets under management.

Richard Shorten, chairman of GlobalStake, described the fund's approach. "BITA generates the yield by essentially holding the Bitcoin assets and then writing covered calls on the assets," Shorten said. He added, "It's a very TradFi type strategy."

Shorten noted that the nature of the underlying asset influences the strategy. "For very volatile assets such as Bitcoin, that creates unique opportunities to participate in both growth and income," he said.

Shorten also compared the complexity of different investment vehicles. "A Bitcoin ETF is a level one level of complexity, a Bitcoin yield ETF is a level two, and the native crypto types are operating at level eight to ten," he said. He explained that for individuals involved in crypto-native strategies, yield is layered through methods such as liquid staking tokens, restaking, DeFi lending, vault strategies, and basis trades. Bitcoin is based on proof-of-work and does not have native staking.

Shorten commented on the significance of major issuers entering the space. "If you are looking for validation that digital assets are a real investable thing, there's no better place to look than the proliferation of these products from very large issuers like BlackRock," he said. "Any product that they introduce is by definition something that is substantial, otherwise they're not gonna put the institutional energy behind it." Shorten sits on the board of an ETF issuer that runs a covered call strategy on traditional equities.