Coinbase Serves as Custodian for Majority of US Spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs

Coinbase is the primary custodian for most US spot crypto exchange‑traded funds, holding the assets of nine of the eleven Bitcoin ETFs and eight of the nine Ethereum ETFs. This concentration means roughly 80‑84% of spot Bitcoin ETF assets—about $74 billion of the $91.7 billion total—are stored with Coinbase. Major issuers such as BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) route their holdings through Coinbase Prime, underscoring the exchange’s role as critical infrastructure for the US crypto market.

While a few issuers use alternative custodians—Fidelity Digital Assets for its FBTC product, Gemini alongside Coinbase for VanEck’s HODL, and Anchorage Digital for some BlackRock allocations—the vast majority of assets remain under Coinbase’s custody. This dominance generates significant revenue for the firm but also creates a single‑point‑of‑failure risk: any operational issue at Coinbase could affect multiple ETFs simultaneously.