Goldman Sachs to Acquire Bitcoin ETF Issuer Innovator in $2B Deal
Goldman Sachs has agreed to acquire Innovator Capital Management for about $2 billion, bringing a provider of defined-outcome exchange-traded funds, including a Bitcoin-linked product, into the bank’s asset-management unit.
Key Takeaways:
Goldman Sachs is buying Innovator to expand its Bitcoin-linked and defined-outcome ETFs. The deal adds about $28 billion to Goldman’s asset-management business. Goldman continues to deepen its crypto push across ETFs and tokenized funds.The deal, expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, is set to add roughly $28 billion in assets under supervision to Goldman’s asset-management arm.
That division reported $3.45 trillion in supervised assets at the end of the third quarter.
Goldman to Expand Defined-Outcome ETFs With Options Strategy Push
Goldman said the purchase would expand its lineup of active and defined-outcome ETFs, products that rely on options strategies to cap losses and preset how much of an asset’s upside investors can capture over a set period.
Innovator has drawn attention in crypto circles through its structured Bitcoin exposure. Launched in February, the firm’s QBF ETF uses FLEX options tied to Bitcoin ETFs or the Cboe Bitcoin US ETF Index to track part of Bitcoin’s performance while limiting quarterly losses to 20%.
The current design allows investors to capture 71% of any positive price move over a quarter. As of Friday, QBF held about $19.3 million in market value, according to Innovator.
The acquisition highlights how quickly Goldman’s stance on digital assets has shifted. In 2020, the bank publicly warned clients away from cryptocurrencies.
Since then, it has steadily ramped up its activity across the sector. Between 2020 and 2024, Goldman participated in 18 investments in blockchain firms, ranking it among the most active global backers of early-stage crypto companies.
Its exposure via ETFs has grown as well. In the second quarter of 2024, the bank bought around $419 million in Bitcoin ETF shares, according to CoinShares’ analysis of regulatory filings.
By the fourth quarter, disclosures showed nearly $1.28 billion in the iShares Bitcoin Trust and $288 million in Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund. The bank also lifted its Ethereum ETF holdings to $476 million.
In July, Goldman Sachs and Bank of New York Mellon launched a system allowing institutional clients to access tokenized money market funds.
The offering targets the $7.1 trillion market, uses Goldman’s blockchain platform to record fund ownership, and is integrated with BNY’s custody services.
Vanguard Opens Platform to Crypto-Linked ETFs
As reported, Vanguard has opened its US brokerage platform to crypto-focused ETFs and mutual funds, ending years of resistance to digital assets.
Clients can now trade third-party funds holding Bitcoin, Ether, XRP and Solana, provided the products meet regulatory standards, according to Bloomberg.
The shift matters because of Vanguard’s scale. With about $11 trillion under management and more than 50 million clients, millions of investors who previously could not buy spot Bitcoin ETFs through their Vanguard accounts now have a direct route into crypto-linked products.
The firm will treat these funds similarly to other “non-core” assets such as gold.
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