What do you get when you mix two fund categories with enough rizz for an investment bank led by a DJ?

The Goldman Sachs Bitcoin Premium Income ETF. The company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday for what would be its entry into the crypto ETF world. And it’s not a basic spot-price fund aimed to compete with BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) or Morgan Stanley’s new low-cost Bitcoin Trust ETF (MSBT). Rather, this entry in the game of variations on crypto invests in spot bitcoin funds and uses options to generate income, which could be alluring to some of Goldman’s well-heeled clientele.

“We affectionately call it ‘boomer candy.’ These products are irresistible if you’re in that category,” Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said, citing products like the $45 billion JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF (JEPI). Slightly older, high-net-worth investors like the idea of bitcoin, but may be nervous about the volatility, which makes derivative-income products a way in. “They have a lot of money but not a lot of time,” he said. “They’re happy to give up some upside for some protection.”

Is the Party Just Getting Started?

Goldman CEO David Solomon, who has successfully moonlighted as DJ D-SOL, has been skeptical about crypto (though he told Bloomberg in February that he owned a small amount of bitcoin). And it was just last week that another bank-affiliated manager, Morgan Stanley, made its foray into the crypto exchange-traded product market, launching a spot-price fund with the lowest fees out there. That company has two major things in its favor: Price advantage and a vast distribution network of advisors. The first incursion of a bank into this corner of the market may have influenced Goldman’s decision. “Wirehouses are hurrying to create crypto ETFs so they can capture some of the trillions of dollars that will be flowing into this asset class over the next decade,” said Ric Edelman, founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals. “We’re witnessing the flywheel effect: As each firm launches funds and encourages their advisors to recommend and their clients to buy, assets flow in – spurring other firms to do likewise.”

Still, it’s somewhat surprising that Goldman does not appear to be planning a spot-price ETF to go along with the premium income fund, said Todd Sohn, chief ETF strategist for Strategas. The view may be that the spot product category is crowded. “On the other hand, income funds are still a massive corner of the ETF industry, and crypto itself remains another growth area, so combining those two makes sense,” he said. “If you can’t go spot, the income route is arguably the next best route.”

Where the trends meet:

• Derivative-income ETFs brought in $17 billion in flows during the first three months of 2026, as well as nearly $58 billion over 12 months, representing one of the fastest-selling fund categories, per data from Morningstar Direct.
• Meanwhile, digital-assets ETFs pulled in just $133 million this year through March, but more than $40 billion over 12 months, a reflection of falling prices that started late last year.

Flip Side: Goldman’s fund, which does not yet have a ticker or fee information, isn’t for crypto diehards, Balchunas said. “Nobody who wants bitcoin will buy this; nobody who wants the upside,” he said, adding there is a real market for bitcoin ETFs. “It helps to be a big issuer with some distribution,” he said. “Those two things pretty much equal some success. ‘How much?’ is the question.”

Waymo, and other self-driving car companies, are getting way mo’ attention from ETF issuers these days.

Tidal Investments is the latest firm looking to take advantage of the growing robotaxi market. Tidal plans to launch an active exchange-traded fund that invests in 20 to 50 companies with exposure to the “development, operation and enablement” of autonomous ride services, per an SEC filing. The firm is expecting the largest allocation to be to US companies, but will also offer significant exposure to those in other countries, particularly China. The fee will be 0.75%, per the filing, and there’s no ticker available yet. Tidal declined to comment on the fund.

Companies like Alphabet-owned Waymo, Amazon-owned Zoox and Tesla are racing to bring more robotaxis to the road. The global robotaxi market is expected to hit $147.25 billion by 2033, according to Grand View Research. “Robotaxi is a hot topic right now, and certainly something that is top of mind for a lot of investors,” said Zachary Evens, an analyst at Morningstar. “That said, how much demand there is for an ETF like this is to be determined, since it is quite niche.”

Joining the Fleet

In January, Roundhill Investments launched the first ETF specifically focused on robotaxis and autonomous vehicles: Robotaxi, Autonomous Vehicles & Technology ETF (CABZ). The fund comes with a 0.59% expense ratio and has garnered $1.28 million in assets.

Tidal’s filing suggests the firm is focused more specifically on robotaxis. That could be a differentiator for “some high conviction investors that want this specific exposure,” Evens said. But the legislative outlook raises questions:

• Across the country, state lawmakers are wrestling with how to best regulate the technology.
• Strict regulation could limit robotaxi companies from operating at the scale required to achieve the profitability expected of them, and weigh on related ETFs, Evens said. Though this isn’t specific to robotaxis. Cannabis and crypto ETF issuers, for instance, are also grappling with a regulatory market that’s in flux.

Interest in active, thematic ETFs is booming, but investors should understand just how niche and specific these investments are, Evens said. With the new robotaxi-related funds, investors are exposed to the risk of a very specific corner of the market and stocks that are highly correlated.

Long Road Ahead. The robotaxi and AV theme needs time to breathe, said Thomas DiFazio, ETF strategist at Roundhill Investments. “When you dig down to the company level and you see the rate of adoption and how the fleets are growing and the miles are driven, we think there’s a lot of positives to take away,” he added.

If hindsight is 20/20, it might be more like 60/40 for investing.

Portfolios with minimal asset-class diversification, such as 60% US stocks and 40% US investment-grade bonds, seriously lagged those that included a wider range of assets last year. Blame 2025’s volatility and series of highly unusual events like the “Liberation Day” tariffs, but while a 60/40 portfolio returned about 13% during the year, a more diversified portfolio built by Morningstar researchers returned 18%, according to a paper the company published Tuesday. The difference was largely thanks to the 11-asset-class portfolio’s allocations to international stocks and gold, portfolio strategist Amy Arnott said.

“The US market had been so strong for so long that a lot of investors were starting to write off non-US markets,” she said. “The performance we saw last year was a pretty strong vindication for the merits of global diversification.”

Farsighted Findings

While the 60/40 portfolio idea is more of a benchmark than a contemporary investment philosophy, it’s not refuted by Morningstar’s findings. That’s because 2025 was an outlier. The 60/40 portfolio in the research did better in most of the past 20 years than more highly diversified strategies, and the 60/40 approach still managed to outperform stock-only portfolios on a risk-adjusted basis 80% of the time, as far back as 1976, the authors noted.

A look at returns over time:

• During the past three years through 2025, the 60/40 portfolio returned 15.4% on average annually, compared with 13.99% for the diversified portfolio.
• Over five years, the 60/40 portfolio still led, at 7.97% versus 7.01%.
• That was also the case up to 20 years out, at which point the 60/40 portfolio returned 8.22%, and the diversified portfolio returned 7.13%.

Vision Correction: As much as the findings show the benefit of a plain-vanilla strategy, it’s worth noting that international markets are on the up and up, Arnott said. As for gold, though, it’s worth keeping as a small percentage of assets, at most, given its volatility, she said. “If we continue to see a weaker dollar and better valuations outside of the US, there is still a pretty strong argument for international diversification.”