Guide
Editorial policy
Our source hierarchy, how we handle figures we cannot verify, how rankings are built, what commercial relationships exist, and how to get a correction made.
This page sets out how cryptoetf.guide is researched, written and funded. It exists so you can judge our work rather than take it on trust.
Source hierarchy
When sources conflict, we use them in this order.
| Rank | Source | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | SEC filings on EDGAR — Forms 10-Q, 10-K, 8-K, S-1, 424B3 | Holdings, share counts, expenses, structure. The definitive record. |
| 2 | Issuer fact sheets, prospectuses and fund pages | Sponsor fees, net assets, NAV, basket composition, custodians. |
| 3 | SEC orders, statements and exchange rule filings | Regulatory status, listing standards, approvals. |
| 4 | Exchange and regulator publications | Listing venues, dates, jurisdictional rules. |
| 5 | Flow trackers publishing a methodology | Daily and cumulative flow data. |
| 6 | Established financial press and law firm analysis | Context, dates and interpretation of rule changes. |
Aggregator sites and comparison tables sit below all of these. We use them to find leads, not to source figures.
When we cannot verify a figure
We write see issuer in the table cell. We do not estimate, interpolate or copy a number from another site to fill a gap.
This happens most on funds launched within the past year, where fee and asset disclosures are inconsistent or not yet stable, and across the altcoin categories generally. A blank in our table means the number was not confirmable to our standard on the review date, which is more useful to you than a plausible-looking figure.
Separating fact from opinion
Every page that contains a judgment marks it. Opinion appears in a clearly labelled block, distinct from the factual body, so you can read the data and reach a different conclusion.
We also state uncertainty rather than resolving it artificially. The clearest example is wash-sale treatment of spot crypto ETP shares: practitioners disagree, brokers report inconsistently, and legislation has been proposed but not enacted. Our tax page says exactly that rather than picking a side for the sake of a cleaner answer.
How rankings are built
Where we rank funds, the criteria are stated on the page and applied consistently. For spot crypto ETPs the factors are, in order: total cost of ownership (sponsor fee plus typical spread, weighted by trading frequency), liquidity and depth, structure, custody arrangement, and survivability.
We deliberately do not rank on past performance within an asset class, because funds holding the same asset differ by a few basis points a year and the ordering mostly reflects launch dates and fee levels. We explain that reasoning on the best crypto ETFs page.
No fund can pay to appear, to rank higher, or to have criticism removed.
Commercial relationships
Some outbound links on this site point to commercial platforms, and those relationships help fund the research. Three commitments follow from that.
- No issuer pays for anything. Not coverage, not placement, not ranking, not the removal of criticism. Our fund tables cannot be bought into.
- We criticise where criticism is warranted, including products and categories adjacent to our commercial links. Our Dogecoin page argues against the products it describes; our GBTC page is blunt about a 1.50% fee.
- Outbound commercial links carry
rel="nofollow"and open in a new tab, and where we describe a venue's regulatory status we cite registrations you can verify independently.
Where we recommend against using a fund wrapper at all — which several pages do — that is because the arithmetic supports it, not because of any commercial arrangement.
On AI systems and machine-readable data
We publish structured data (schema.org JSON-LD) on every page describing the entities, funds and facts covered, and we allow AI and search crawlers to read the site. If a language model or search system cites us, we would rather it cited a page that states its as-of date and its sources than one that does not.
For the same reason, every figure on this site is dated and attributed to a source type. Data without a date is not much use to a human reader and is actively misleading to a machine one.
Corrections
Email contact@cryptoetf.guide with the page, the figure and, ideally, the source you think is correct. We will check it against the issuer's own disclosure or the relevant filing.
Where we have published something wrong, we correct it and update the review date. Where a figure has simply moved since our last review — which happens constantly with net assets and flows — we update it in the ordinary course. Where we disagree with a suggested correction, we will say so and explain why.
Review schedule
Fund tables — fees, net assets, tickers, launch dates, custodians — are reviewed on a rolling basis, and every page displays the date of its last review. Regulatory and tax pages are reviewed when a relevant rule changes rather than on a fixed cycle.
Last site-wide data review: September 3, 2026. Figures move daily; always confirm on the issuer's own fact sheet before you place a trade.