Goldman Sachs agreed to acquire options-income ETF specialist NEOS Investments for up to $2.25 billion in cash and equity. The deal hands the bank a scaled bitcoin and ether income ETF lineup and pushes its total ETF platform past $130 billion in assets.
Announced Tuesday, the transaction folds NEOS’s roughly $30 billion options-based ETF franchise, 19 funds, into Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The price depends on performance and service targets. Closing is expected in the first quarter of 2027, pending regulatory approval, according to CoinDesk and confirmed by Decrypt and The Block.
NEOS runs three crypto income funds. The largest is BTCI (Bitcoin High Income ETF), which launched in October 2024 and crossed $1 billion in net assets, per the NEOS website. Two smaller funds followed. XBCI (Boosted Bitcoin High Income ETF) launched February 2026 with about $111 million. NEHI (Ethereum High Income ETF) launched December 2025 with over $77 million.
None of the three hold bitcoin or ether directly. Exposure comes through exchange-traded products linked to the assets, with covered calls sold against those positions to generate monthly distributions. Investors collect yield but give up some upside when the underlying rallies.
BTCI yields roughly 27% and charges a 0.99% expense ratio, according to Bloomberg terminal data shared by senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas on X. The fund is down 42.55% over the past year. Shares slid from a 52-week high of $65.87 to around $28.40. Per its SEC prospectus, a portion of distributions may represent return of capital rather than net investment income.
The acquisition gives Goldman a ready-made crypto income shelf. In April, the bank filed its own Goldman Sachs Bitcoin Premium Income ETF with the SEC, a structurally similar covered-call product. It has not said whether the NEOS deal supersedes that filing.
Balchunas connected the dots on X. “Nowww I get why GS never launched the BTC covered call product they filed months ago,” he wrote. “Better to leapfrog [BlackRock’s BITA] vs me too?”
BlackRock launched its iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF (BITA) on Nasdaq in June 2026. BITA targets 15% to 25% annual yield, sells covered calls on 25% to 35% of its IBIT holdings, and charges 0.65%. It currently holds about $59 million in net assets, per blackrock.com. That is a fraction of BTCI’s more than $1 billion.
Combined with NEOS and the Innovator Capital Management acquisition that closed in April for roughly $2 billion, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Innovator, and NEOS will control more than $130 billion in ETF assets as of June 30, 2026. That puts Goldman eighth among active ETF managers globally, the firm said, citing Morningstar.
The derivative-income ETF category that NEOS operates in has grown to roughly $180 billion industry-wide, compounding at more than 70% annually since 2021, per Morningstar.
Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon framed the deal in broad terms. “As investor demand for active ETFs grows, NEOS’ disciplined investment approach is highly complementary to our capabilities across buffer, managed outcome and income strategies,” Solomon said in a statement.
NEOS co-founders Troy Cates and Garrett Paolella will join Goldman as partners after closing.
What remains unclear: the exact split between cash and equity in the $2.25 billion valuation, the specific performance targets tied to the full price, and whether the three crypto funds will be rebranded under Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The bank has not disclosed whether its April Bitcoin Premium Income ETF filing will proceed or be withdrawn.
Holders, as ever, are divided.
