Motley Fool Flags iShares Ethereum (ETH) ETF ETHA as Shares Rebound 36%

Three Spot ETFs on the Watchlist

Financial publisher The Motley Fool on Friday, Oct. 3, named three spot crypto ETFs as the products to watch while the largest coins trade far beneath their 2025 records, and its Ethereum (ETH) entry, the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA), is defined as much by what it omits as by what it holds. ETHA offers no staking. Assets under management stand at $9.8 billion and the expense ratio is 0.25%. The fund's shares outstanding fell 22% during the first half of 2026, then climbed 36% through Sept. 28, a swing the analysis reads as investors returning after the market's slide. As of Sept. 29, Ethereum traded roughly 46% below its 2025 all-time high of $4,946, while Bitcoin sat 33% under $126,080 and Solana about 60% under $293; all three posted record highs in 2025 before a heavy correction. The Ethereum price now stands at $2,685, down 2.3% over the past 24 hours on COINOTAG's live feed, roughly flat against the newest source reading. The tax logic anchors the ETHA pick. ETF wrappers that do stake, including a sibling iShares fund that paid a 1.35% reward as of Sept. 30, expose holders to a rule the publication spelled out plainly: the IRS treats staking rewards as taxable income in the year they are received, whether or not the holder sells. Investors who want Ethereum (ETH) exposure without that annual tax event may therefore prefer the non-staking structure, the argument goes, since the reward is taxed on arrival.

The $1,000 Allocation and the Recovery Math

The picks sit against a market that spent most of 2026 retreating. From Dec. 31, 2025 through June 30, 2026, the bear phase cut IBIT's net assets by 36%, yet the fund's share count shrank only 4.6%, a gap the analysis attributes to holders staying put rather than selling into weakness. By Sept. 30 the share count had climbed back above its June level, and cumulative net inflows across the fund's life reached $65 billion. Scale matters in the comparison: IBIT's $66.8 billion in net assets is more than half of the $107.8 billion held across all US spot Bitcoin ETFs. The Motley Fool's illustrative allocation for a $1,000 stake puts $600 into IBIT and $200 each into ETHA and Bitwise's Solana fund BSOL, the only one of the three that pays a yield, at a 5.5% net reward rate on $1.3 billion in assets and a 0.20% fee. The weighting reflects a judgment that Bitcoin is the relatively steadier major asset, while Ethereum (ETH) and Solana must compete against many rival blockchains over the long run. BSOL's economics carry a scheduled change: Solana's stakers approved the governance proposal SIMD-0550 in August, and if it takes effect in early 2027 the base reward rate is projected to fall from 5.8% to about 4.3% within a year and toward 2.2% by 2029. A separate plan covered on this desk, meanwhile, assigned Ethereum a 20% portfolio weight in a 10-year construction. Whether fresh capital actually follows these wrappers after so deep a drawdown is the variable that will decide how much upside remains.

Composite Levels: $2,660 Support

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine rates the $2,660 support at 89/100, driven by the confluence of the Fibonacci 0.114 level, the ATR lower band, the Ichimoku Kijun and S1. Overhead, $2,809 scores 77/100 on Donchian Upper, the swing high and Fibonacci 0.000, with a lighter 55/100 shelf at $2,697, rejected earlier on fading volume per our tracking. Spot trades at $2,685, down 2.3% on the day, between the two. Momentum reads mixed: RSI at 60.08 with a bearish MACD signal inside a broader uptrend. Positioning is mildly defensive, with perp funding at -0.0010% against $11.69 billion in open interest and a 1.62 long/short account ratio, while the Fear & Greed Index holds at 67, in Greed territory. The bullish scenario needs a hold of $2,660 and a reclaim of $2,809; a daily close below $2,660 would invalidate it. As the piece leaves them, the two series do not yet agree: the ETHA share count is up 36% while the price sits 46% below its 2025 high, and only a move through $2,809 would put flow and tape on the same side.