Canada’s First Bitcoin ETF Has Shed Coins at Every Reading Since July 2025
The Purpose Bitcoin ETF held 18,393.433581 BTC on October 2, 2026, against 21,243.118 BTC on the fund’s own page as archived on July 4, 2025. That is 2,849.685 fewer coins, a fall of 13.41%, and the count was lower at every one of the six readings we have.
Coin count is the one number in a spot Bitcoin fund that price cannot touch. The dollar value of the fund rises and falls with the market every day, but the number of coins in the pool moves only when units are created or redeemed, and when the fund sells Bitcoin to pay its costs. Purpose Investments publishes that figure on the Purpose Bitcoin ETF fund page, which makes the series checkable rather than inferred.
The fund’s own page sets out what is in the pool
Purpose Bitcoin ETF was Canada’s first spot Bitcoin ETF, with an ETF series start date of February 23, 2021. It lists four exchange-traded classes, all drawing on the same pool of coins: BTCC, which is currency hedged, BTCC.B, which is not, BTCC.J, a carbon offset class that is also unhedged, and BTCC.U, which trades in US dollars. We have an archived history for BTCC and BTCC.B only, and those are the two classes this piece follows.
As of the October 2, 2026 portfolio date, the fund reported 18,393.433581 BTC and a size of $2.2 billion CAD and $1.5 billion USD, with a net asset value of $14.68 CAD on the hedged ETF series. Bitcoin per unit was 0.00012589396129099426 for BTCC and 0.0001383249715818111 for BTCC.B. Our arithmetic on those readings: 18,393.433581 BTC at the October 2 BTC-CAD close of $120,387.41 CAD is $2.214 billion CAD, in line with the $2.2 billion the fund states.
The count fell in all five intervals
| Reading | BTC held | Change from prior |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-07-04 | 21,243.118 | n/a |
| 2025-10-07 | 20,422.695 | -3.86% |
| 2025-12-06 | 20,010.904 | -2.02% |
| 2026-02-11 | 19,513.321 | -2.49% |
| 2026-06-09 | 18,783.017 | -3.74% |
| 2026-10-02 | 18,393.434 | -2.07% |
The last two readings carry Purpose’s own portfolio date. The earlier four are the fund’s page as archived on those dates, so the holdings are from on or shortly before each capture.
What makes a run of five negative intervals worth noting is what Bitcoin did across them. The price peaked at $124,753 USD on October 6, 2025, fell to $58,559 USD on June 30, 2026, a drawdown of 53.06%, then recovered 44.29% from that low to October 2. The coin count did not care. It was lower at the peak reading than the one before it, lower through the decline, and lower again after the recovery.
Bitcoin held at each of the six readings, from 21,243 to 18,393. Source: Purpose Investments fund page, archived captures and the October 2, 2026 portfolio date.
Price did more to fund size than redemptions did
Purpose stated a size of $3.17 billion CAD at the start of the window and $2.2 billion CAD at the end. On our own arithmetic from the coin count and the daily close, the fund went from $3.1621 billion CAD on July 3, 2025 to $2.2143 billion CAD on October 2, 2026, a fall of $947.76 million CAD, or 29.97%.
Splitting that fall between the two causes is our computation as well, and the split depends on the ordering. Valuing the price effect at the starting coin count puts $604.70 million CAD on the Bitcoin price and $343.07 million CAD on coins leaving the fund. Reversing the order puts $523.6 million CAD on price and $424.2 million CAD on coins. Price did more of the damage than redemptions under either convention, which is the part that holds regardless of how the arithmetic is arranged.
The underlying moves: Bitcoin fell 19.12% in Canadian dollar terms over the window and the coin count fell 13.41%. In US dollar terms Bitcoin fell 22.94%, from $109,647.98 USD to $84,497.21 USD. The difference between those two price declines implies a currency move of about 4.7%, against the 4.45% the Canadian dollar actually lost to the US dollar over the window.
The unhedged class pays its management fee in Bitcoin
Bitcoin per unit is where the cost of the wrapper becomes visible, because nothing else in it moves. For BTCC.B, the unhedged class, the figure fell at every reading, and annualised, the five intervals range from 1.084% to 1.553% a year. Across the full window it fell 1.663%, which annualises to 1.331% a year.
Purpose publishes an MER of 1.29% on that class, a trading expense ratio of 0.02%, and a fund expense ratio of 1.31% as the total. Our measured drag of 1.331% a year sits against that 1.31% FER rather than against the management fee alone, which is the comparison that matters: the coins coming out of the pool pay the whole published cost of running the fund, not just the headline number.
That is the fee, denominated in coins rather than dollars. A holder of the unhedged class ends each period owning slightly less Bitcoin per unit than they did at the start, whatever the price has done. Coins per share is also how we order the names on our page of Canadian crypto stocks, because a company holding Bitcoin on its balance sheet raises the same question an ETF does: how much of the asset does one share actually control.
For anyone who wants to put a cost of that size against their own holding period and contribution pattern rather than ours, the mutual fund fee calculator runs that arithmetic directly.
Bitcoin per unit for both classes, indexed to 100 at the July 2025 reading, ending at 98.3 for the unhedged class and 94.1 for the hedged class. Source: Purpose Investments fund page, archived captures and the October 2, 2026 portfolio date.
The hedge is settled out of the same coin pool, in both directions
The hedged class tells a different story. BTCC’s Bitcoin per unit fell 5.909% over the window, annualising to 4.729% a year, against the unhedged class’s 1.331%. That is a full-window gap of 4.246 percentage points.
The hedge is being settled in coins, and it runs both ways. The clearest reading of it sits between the December 2025 and February 2026 captures: the Canadian dollar rose 2.931%, BTCC’s Bitcoin per unit rose 2.909%, and BTCC.B’s fell 0.245%, which is its fee. The hedged class is the only one of the two whose per-unit figure has ever gone up in this series. Over this particular window the loonie fell, so the hedged holder gave up coins. Judging a fund on what it delivers after its costs is the basis of our Canadian ETF rankings, and currency mechanics belong in that calculation alongside the headline fee.
The hedge cost more than the currency move it was there to neutralise
The fund page also publishes returns by class, dated September 30, 2026, two days before the holdings date above. Over the year to that date, the hedged BTCC returned -29.70% and the unhedged BTCC.B returned -26.24%, a gap of 3.46 percentage points measured by the issuer on classes that own a share of the same coins. The Canadian dollar fell 1.939% against the US dollar over that same year. On our arithmetic from those published returns and the daily closes, the hedge cost roughly 1.8 times the currency move it existed to neutralise.
Our own longer window is a different measurement over a different period. From July 3, 2025 to October 2, 2026 the Canadian dollar fell 4.453% and the coins-per-unit gap between the two classes was 4.246 percentage points, about 0.95 times the currency move. Per unit of currency movement, the two readings differ by nearly a factor of two, so neither one sets a rate for the other.
Our reading of the excess in the one-year figure is rebalancing. A hedge is sized to the position it protects, this position fell 53% and then rose 44%, and resizing it through swings of that size has to be paid for whichever way the currency went.
The hedged class carries a cost the coin count does not show
Multiplying each class’s Bitcoin per unit by the October 2, 2026 BTC-CAD close of $120,387.41 CAD gives what a unit’s coins were worth that day, which can be set beside the NAV the fund publishes.
For BTCC.B the two agree: a coin entitlement of $16.65 CAD against a published NAV of $16.64 CAD, a difference of 0.08%. For BTCC they do not: a coin entitlement of $15.16 CAD against a published NAV of $14.68 CAD, with NAV 3.14% below the coins.
The unhedged class’s NAV is its coins. The hedged class’s is not, and our reading of the gap is an open hedge position marked against the class that has not yet been settled out of the coin pool. The 0.08% agreement on the unhedged class is consistent with that, though Purpose does not describe the gap anywhere on the page. On that reading, the hedged class’s 5.909% per-unit decline is fee plus the hedging already settled in coins: about 1.663 points of it is the same fee the unhedged class paid, and about 4.246 points is hedging, which is not the whole of what the hedge has cost. What the gap does not do is tell us how it will eventually settle, which depends on where the currency goes from here.
Most of the coin decline is redemptions, not costs
Total coins equal units outstanding multiplied by coins per unit, so the fee and the redemptions can be told apart. A per-unit decline of 1.663% on the unhedged class is nowhere near large enough to account for a 13.41% fall in the coin pool. Most of the coins that left did so because units were redeemed, not because costs were paid.
US funds took in money through the same quarter
Set the most recent interval against the US market. Between the June 9 and October 2, 2026 readings the fund went from 18,783.017 BTC to 18,393.434 BTC, a fall of 389.583 BTC or 2.07%, while Bitcoin rose 44.29% off its June 30 low. Over roughly that stretch, US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $6.3 billion USD in the third quarter of 2026, according to SoSoValue data, with $985 million USD of net inflow for 2026 to date and a reported net outflow of $5.4 billion USD in the first half.
The two sides of that comparison are not the same size. This is one fund of about $2.2 billion CAD, set against inflows across the entire US spot complex, and it is one Canadian fund rather than evidence about Canadian demand generally.
The case against reading this as a verdict on Bitcoin
A shrinking coin count is what an exchange-traded fund does when its holders take profits or cut losses. Redemptions are the mechanism working as designed, not a fault in it, and a fund that gets smaller is not a fund in trouble.
It also says nothing in itself about Bitcoin’s prospects. A cost of 1.31% a year paid in coins is a reason to change wrapper that has nothing to do with a view on price, and a holder moving between vehicles leaves exactly the same footprint in this data as a holder leaving the asset.
What the data does not show is where redeemed money went. The fund’s page reports what left the pool, not what the holder bought next, and that limit is worth holding onto when reading a run of five consecutive declines.
The same issuer’s Ethereum fund, for comparison
Purpose’s Ethereum ETF held 123,186.618801 ETH on October 2, 2026, with a size of $464.3 million CAD and a stated MER of 1.42%, a higher published fee than the Bitcoin fund charges.
Today’s tape
Bitcoin was at $85,260.13 USD and $121,458.50 CAD, up 0.61% on the US dollar basis, when we pulled prices by hand at 7:12 a.m. ET on October 4, 2026. Ethereum was at $2,701.86 USD and $3,848.79 CAD, up 0.55% on the same US dollar basis. Both moves are measured against Saturday’s close on the same feed, and because crypto trades continuously, Sunday’s bar was still open when those readings were taken.
Data as of October 4, 2026 for prices and October 2, 2026 for fund figures, with class returns as of September 30, 2026.
Disclaimer: The content on bestcanadianstocks.ca is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Fund figures are from Purpose Investments’ own fund page for the Purpose Bitcoin ETF and for its Ethereum fund, saved on October 4, 2026. The Bitcoin holding, coins-per-unit figures, net asset values, fees and per-class returns are the issuer’s own published numbers; the holdings carry the fund’s stated portfolio date of October 2, 2026 and the per-class returns are dated September 30, 2026. Earlier coin counts come from Internet Archive captures of that same Purpose page, so each is dated by its capture and the holding is from on or shortly before that date. Bitcoin, Ethereum and Canadian dollar prices are Yahoo Finance daily closes, and today’s prices are a Yahoo snapshot pulled at 7:12 a.m. ET on October 4, 2026 against Saturday’s close on the same feed. The decomposition of fund size into price and coin effects, the annualised coins-per-unit rates, and the ratio of the hedge gap to the currency move are our own arithmetic on those published figures. US spot Bitcoin ETF flow figures are SoSoValue data.
