ETHA vs FETH vs ETHE: Which Ethereum ETF Costs You the Least?

ETHA, FETH and ETHE are the ether ETFs most people compare. They come from iShares, Fidelity and Grayscale. Each one holds ether and lets you own it through a normal brokerage account in the US.

Last week we did the same test on the bitcoin funds, and the answer was simple: the fee is the only difference. Ether has a twist. Since 6 October 2025, some of these funds stake their ether, which earns a reward, and they pay part of it to you. So we put $10,000 in each at the close on 23 July 2024, the first day they all traded as ETFs, reinvested every payout, and checked the result at the close on 23 October 2026.

ETHA vs FETH vs ETHE at a glance

ETHA is the giant, holding about 3.26 million ether. But size doesn't change what you own. One share is a slice of ether. The rows that matter are the fee and the staking: $25 a year on $10,000 at ETHA or FETH, $250 at ETHE, $15 at the Mini.

What $10,000 became in each

Ether fell over the period, so every fund lost money. ETHA and FETH finished 33 cents apart. ETHE finished $233 behind them. $10,000 of ether itself, bought at 4pm New York on the same day, was worth $6,915. The Mini was worth $7,003, $89 more than the ether.

FETH and ETHA never drifted more than $20 apart. ETHE slid behind from its first week, and the gap grew to $365 by 3 October 2025. That was the last close before Grayscale started staking. From there the slide stopped and the gap shrank. The Mini did better still: it was ahead of ETHA by the week of 31 October 2025 and stayed ahead.

Why ETHE fell behind

ETHE isn't new. Grayscale ran it as a trust from 2017, and it was quoted over the counter from 2019. It kept the fee it charged then, 2.5%, when it became an ETF in July 2024.

Grayscale's bitcoin fund, GBTC, got a head start when it became an ETF, because its price had been sitting below its bitcoin. ETHE got none. In our test it was behind ETHA from its first week, paying its full fee with nothing to cushion it.

Before staking, from 23 July 2024 to 3 October 2025, ETHE lost 2.34% a year to ETHA. That's almost exactly the gap between their fees, 2.5% against 0.25%.

What staking changed

Ethereum pays people to help run it. You lock up some ether, the network uses it to check transactions, and it pays you a reward in new ether. That's staking. Bitcoin has nothing like it, which is why the bitcoin funds can only compete on fees.

On 6 October 2025, Grayscale started staking the ether in ETHE and the Mini. On the study date, ETHE had 82.22% of its ether staked and the Mini 80.23%. Grayscale puts the staking reward at 2.63% a year before costs. It sells the rewards and pays you cash each month.

Since staking began, ETHE has lost only 0.59% a year to ETHA, down from 2.34%. The Mini went from level with ETHA to 1.96% a year ahead of it. Same staking, very different fees. That's why one finished ahead of ether and the other behind it.

On $10,000, ETHE paid out $102.26 in total and the Mini $23.56. The Mini only started paying cash in September 2026. Before that its rewards stayed in the fund. Its last two payouts work out at about 2.02% a year. ETHE's last three work out at about 1.66%.

Year by year

ETHE came last in every year. ETHA and FETH trailed ether by less than half a point each year. In 2025 and 2026 the Mini beat ether itself, and staking is the reason.

ETHA vs FETH: is there any difference?

On returns, none so far. They charge the same fee and finished 33 cents apart on $10,000. Three things do differ:

• FETH has started staking. Fidelity put 27% of its ether to work by 30 September 2026, but it hasn't paid any cash yet and doesn't publish a reward rate. ETHA doesn't stake at all. iShares put staking in a separate fund instead.
• ETHA is much bigger, more than 5 times FETH's size, so it trades more. Its median spread between the buy and sell price was 0.02%, against 0.04% for FETH. On $10,000 that's a few dollars at most.
• If you already have a Fidelity account, FETH is right there. Anywhere else, ETHA is on almost every US broker.

The two cheap staking funds: the Mini and ETHB

Grayscale's Ethereum Staking Mini ETF (ticker ETH) launched with ETHE in July 2024. It's the same idea at 0.15% a year, and it held about 932,000 ether on the study date. That's more than ETHE or FETH. It stakes like ETHE and pays monthly.

iShares took a different route. It left ETHA alone and launched the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF, ticker ETHB, on 12 March 2026. It charges 0.25%, cut to 0.12% on its first $2.5bn until March 2027, and pays monthly. Its last three payouts work out at about 1.34% a year. $10,000 put in on its first day was $73 ahead of the same in ETHA by 23 October 2026.

So why is money still in ETHE at 2.5%? Mostly because selling can cost more than staying. A US holder who bought ETHE cheap would owe tax on the gain if they sold to switch. If that's you, work out the tax bill before you move. If it isn't, there's no reason to buy ETHE new.

The catches with staking

• The reward isn't fixed. It moves with how much ether is staked across the whole network, and it can fall.
• Staked ether is locked up, and getting it back can take days when lots of people want out at once. That's one reason each fund keeps some of its ether unstaked.
• The fund keeps a cut. Grayscale publishes a reward before costs and a lower one after them. Read the gap, not just the headline.
• A monthly payout is income. Many tax systems treat it differently from a gain on the shares. Check how yours does.

The risks

• The big one is ether itself. $10,000 put into ETHA on day one was worth $13,944 at its high on 22 August 2025, and $4,474 on 25 June 2026. That's a fall of more than two-thirds in ten months. No fee or staking reward protects you from that.
• The ETFs trade only when the US stock market is open. Ether trades all weekend. If it drops on a Saturday, you can't sell until Monday.
• You don't hold the ether yourself. You can't move it to a wallet or use it on Ethereum. In return, you don't have to worry about losing a password.
• A share can trade a little above or below the value of its ether. For these funds it's usually a fraction of a percent. Use a limit order anyway.

Outside the US

These are US-listed funds. In the UK and the EU, most brokers won't sell them to private investors, because they don't publish the key information document those rules require. The local version is an ether ETP listed in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Zurich. Compare them the same way: the fee, and what any staking actually pays you.

So which one?

• You want plain ether at a low fee: ETHA or FETH, both 0.25%. Flip a coin.
• You want staking income at a low fee: Grayscale's Mini at 0.15%, or iShares' ETHB at 0.25%.
• You already have a Fidelity account: FETH.
• You want the biggest, most traded fund: ETHA.
• You already own ETHE: switching to the Mini saves $235 a year on every $10,000 and keeps the staking. Only switch if selling won't land you a tax bill bigger than a few years of that.
• You want to hold and stake ether yourself: skip the ETFs and buy it on an exchange. Our guide to the cheapest exchanges for a first buy is linked below.