Advisors Loading Up on ETFs Favor Crypto, Commodity Strategies

In the third quarter of 2025, advisors didn’t just fine-tune their ETF portfolios, they expanded them.

The average RIA now holds about 72 ETFs, up from 69 last quarter, with the median portfolio growing from 38 to 40 funds, according to the latest RIA ETF Trends Report from AdvizorPro. More than half of RIAs increased the number of strategies in which they invested, while fewer than one in five trimmed their lists. The data show that ETF adoption is accelerating among independent financial advisors, experts said, and underscore the continued acceptance of cryptocurrencies besides bitcoin as core components of a diversified portfolio.

“RIAs are still experimenting with a lot of different types of ETFs,” said Michael Magnan, founder of AdvizorPro and an author of the report. “We’ve seen bitcoin ETFs be one of the top players … But this quarter, we saw Ethereum-based ETFs take the cake, and bitcoin wasn’t even in the top 10.”

One of Everything, Please

Although ETF additions were spread out across more products during the third quarter than in the first half of the year, several categories stood out. There was decent growth among income- and derivative-based ETFs, with options-based issuer NEOS Investments garnering significant RIA traction quarter-over-quarter, but funds tracking cryptocurrencies and commodities took the cake. SLV and GLD were added by 133 and 116 firms, respectively, while Ethereum was incorporated by 199 RIAs. Thematics also led the charge, with defense, industrial and AI products gaining significant adoption.

“We’re at an interesting point where there are a lot of new options that weren’t previously available,” Magnan said, including more complex tax-mitigation and options-based strategies. The report also found that:

• SHLD, a defense technology ETF, was added by 136 firms.
• ETFs tracking precious metals, like silver, platinum and gold, were added by 115 RIAs.

Highly Fees-ible: Even high-fee ETFs saw some daylight. Despite industry-wide fee compression, expensive products — often involving complex hedging techniques or downside buffers — continued to attract new RIA users. The Virtus InfraCap US Preferred Stock ETF (PFFA), for example, which has a whopping expense ratio of 2.48%, had a 16% gain in pickup by RIAs quarter-over-quarter.

“We’re seeing a lot of that early adoption happening,” Magnan said, “and I think that’s going to prove a lot of concepts and ETF categories as being things that should be normal and commonplace across the entire advisor spectrum.”