- Pays: monthly, going ex-dividend at the start of the month — when there's anything to pay.
- Paying since: 2023 in this data (the fund itself launched October 2021 as the first US bitcoin-futures ETF).
- What it is: a fund that holds bitcoin FUTURES — its distributions are mostly gains from rolling those futures, not option income.
- Payout pattern: feast and famine — roughly $14/share in 2024, $9.50 in 2025, and near zero through mid-2026 as futures gains dried up.
- The lesson in one line: a trailing "yield" means nothing here — payouts only exist when bitcoin futures make money.
BITO promises no distribution at all — in months without futures gains to distribute, checks can shrink to pennies, as 2026 shows.
BITO pays monthly when it has gains to distribute. Each point below is one distribution — you can see the 2024 feast and the 2026 famine plainly. The table further down totals each year.
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Each point is one payment; the line ends at the most recent payout. The table below totals them by year.
| Recent Ex-Dividend Dates | Distribution / Share |
|---|
"Next expected" is estimated from BITO's recent payment rhythm — the fund announces exact dates shortly before each payout, and the data feed can lag a few days. You must own shares before the ex-dividend date to receive that payout; the cash typically arrives days later.
A real total-return estimate, assuming every payout was reinvested — including what happened to the share price. Before taxes and fees. Past performance does not predict the future.
Screeners love to show BITO with a huge trailing yield — and it's a mirage. BITO doesn't manufacture income the way covered-call funds do; it simply passes through gains from rolling bitcoin futures when those gains exist. Bull year: enormous distributions (2024 paid about $14 a share). Flat or falling year: nearly nothing (mid-2026's payments have totaled pennies). The trailing yield is a photo of last year's weather, not a forecast.
If a dependable monthly check from crypto exposure is what you want, an engineered-income design like BTCI pays from option premiums, which exist in every kind of market. And whatever you hold, judge it by total return — the backtest box above does that math with real prices.
| Year | Total Distributions / Share | Payments | Change vs Prior Year |
|---|
Data source: Yahoo Finance. Figures are per share; the current year may be partial and figures should be verified against official sources.
Calculated from complete calendar years in the data above. Past results don't guarantee future payments.
When Is BITO's Next Ex-Dividend Date?
BITO pays monthly, going ex-dividend at the start of each month. The exact date of each payout is announced by the fund only shortly beforehand, so no site can promise the next date — but the live schedule box above shows the most recent ex-dividend date and the expected window for the next one, computed from BITO's actual payment rhythm. Remember: you must own shares before the ex-dividend date to receive that payout.
Feast and Famine: BITO's Payment Record
BITO — the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF — made history in 2021 as the first US bitcoin-futures ETF, and its distribution history reads like a crypto market diary. The chart above plots every payment: substantial checks through 2023, a 2024 feast (about $14 per share as bitcoin ripped), a solid 2025 — and then 2026's famine, with six payments so far totaling under a dime. Same fund, same rules, wildly different markets.
Why the Payments Vanish
BITO can't hold bitcoin directly — it holds monthly futures contracts, and as each expires it "rolls" into the next. When bitcoin rises, that rolling books gains, and US fund rules require distributing realized gains to shareholders: hence the big checks. When bitcoin stalls or falls, there are no gains to book — and the distribution machinery has nothing to pass along. No volatility harvest, no option premiums, no cushion: just weather.
Who BITO Actually Suits
BITO exists for one job: bitcoin exposure inside an ordinary brokerage or retirement account, with futures doing the work. The distributions are a side effect, not a feature — anyone buying BITO for the yield is reading the label backwards. For crypto exposure engineered to pay income, compare BTCI; for the broader lesson on judging high payers, our return-of-capital guide explains the honest test — total return, never the trailing yield.
Never Buy a Trailing Yield
BITO is the textbook case: last year's payout tells you nothing about next month's. Learn the honest tests before chasing any big number.
Read: Return of Capital & NAV Erosion