The ETF industry is moving far beyond traditional index funds.
Three recently launched products highlighted by Bloomberg show just how quickly fund managers are experimenting with new structures: one is built around tax deferral for investors with highly appreciated stocks, another attempts to package exposure to the next generation of artificial-intelligence companies—including private firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic, and a third is designed to give investors Bitcoin exposure while actively managing volatility.
The three funds are The Investment House ETF (TIH), Yorkville America MANGOS Plus Index ETF (FRUT) and Hedgeye Hedged Bitcoin ETF (HBIT). Bloomberg’s Trillions podcast specifically highlighted the three products on Sept. 17, describing them as examples of how rapidly ETF strategies are expanding.
But beneath the flashy themes are very different investment structures—and very different risks.
1. TIH: An ETF built around tax deferral
The Investment House ETF, ticker TIH, began trading on Nasdaq on Aug. 6.
At first glance, TIH looks like another actively managed equity ETF. Its SEC filing says the fund seeks long-term capital appreciation and invests primarily in stocks of small-, mid- and large-capitalization companies that the sub-adviser believes have long-term growth potential.
The unusual part is how investors can use the ETF structure.
Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas explained that a Section 351 transaction can allow an investor holding appreciated individual stocks to contribute those securities to an ETF structure and diversify without immediately realizing the embedded capital gain. The tax basis carries forward, meaning the tax is generally deferred rather than eliminated.
That distinction matters.
Calling the strategy “tax avoidance” can imply that the tax disappears. It doesn’t. Under the structure being discussed, the investor can postpone recognition of the gain while gaining access to a diversified portfolio.
Bloomberg’s discussion also noted that TIH had attracted roughly $600 million, apparently through a large Section 351 conversion rather than conventional retail fund flows.
That is significant because it illustrates a broader development in the ETF market: the ETF wrapper is increasingly being used not merely as a way to buy a basket of securities, but also as a tool for portfolio restructuring and tax management.
The SEC prospectus, however, makes clear that fund distributions and eventual sales of ETF shares can still create taxable events.
The takeaway: TIH isn’t a magic tax-free investment. Its attraction is the possibility of deferring capital-gains recognition under a specific tax structure, which can be particularly relevant to investors sitting on large unrealized gains.
2. FRUT: An ETF trying to package the next AI giants
Then there is Yorkville America MANGOS Plus Index ETF, ticker FRUT.
This fund is arguably the most eye-catching of the three because it attempts to combine publicly traded AI leaders with exposure to companies that remain private.
The fund launched Aug. 31 and tracks the Yorkville America MANGOS Plus Index. Its prospectus identifies Meta, Nvidia, Alphabet, SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic as the core “MANGO” companies, supplemented by an additional group of AI-infrastructure companies.
The additional companies include names such as SanDisk, Marvell, Micron, Intel, Dell, AMD and Broadcom, giving the fund exposure not only to AI platforms but also to the semiconductor and hardware infrastructure supporting the technology boom.
Reuters reported in August that Yorkville’s fund was designed to broaden exposure to AI beyond the traditional group of mega-cap technology stocks, with exposure to private companies achieved through derivatives.
That’s where FRUT becomes particularly unusual.
OpenAI and Anthropic are private companies. Rather than simply buying publicly traded shares, the fund uses derivative structures—including perpetual futures and swaps—to obtain economic exposure to private-company valuations. The fund’s own materials warn that this introduces risks involving derivatives, counterparties, liquidity and valuation.
The strategy also comes with concentration risk.
The fund is classified as non-diversified, meaning it can put a larger percentage of its assets into a smaller number of companies than a diversified fund. Yorkville itself warns that concentration in AI, semiconductors and related technology can increase exposure to sector-specific volatility.
Reuters previously reported that the “MANGOS” concept emerged as a social-media-driven alternative to the familiar Magnificent Seven grouping, with the acronym referring to Meta, Alphabet, Nvidia, SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI.
That makes FRUT more than another technology ETF. It is an attempt to put public-market and pre-IPO AI exposure into a single tradable vehicle.
And that comes with a major caveat: exposure to a private company through a derivative is not the same thing as owning that company’s private shares.
3. HBIT: Bitcoin—with a seat belt
The third ETF takes a very different approach.
The Hedgeye Hedged Bitcoin ETF, ticker HBIT, launched in late August on the NYSE.
Rather than buying Bitcoin directly, HBIT primarily invests in U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products, including the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, while using options to dynamically manage its exposure.
The fund’s objective is to participate in Bitcoin’s long-term appreciation while attempting to reduce volatility and manage downside risk.
Its options positioning can change as frequently as daily based on Hedgeye’s proprietary Risk Range signals, Bitcoin’s price behavior, implied volatility, liquidity and other market conditions.
That makes HBIT different from a conventional spot-Bitcoin ETF.
Investors aren’t simply accepting Bitcoin’s full price movement. They are paying for an actively managed strategy intended to alter the risk profile.
But the hedge is not guaranteed to work.
Hedgeye’s own disclosures state that options strategies can limit participation in gains, may not fully offset losses and involve additional costs and risks. The fund also has no long operating history, since it was newly organized.
As of Sept. 9, the fund reported a 0.70% gross expense ratio, according to its website. Its holdings data showed the portfolio was heavily concentrated in the iShares Bitcoin Trust alongside Bitcoin-related options positions.
So HBIT is essentially asking a different question from traditional Bitcoin ETFs:
Can investors keep meaningful Bitcoin exposure without simply accepting the asset’s entire volatility profile?
The bigger story: ETFs are becoming financial laboratories
The three funds reflect a much broader transformation in the ETF industry.
ETF.com data shows dozens of new U.S. ETFs and exchange-traded products arriving in just the first half of September, ranging from AI and semiconductor strategies to prediction markets, structured-income products, cryptocurrency funds and leveraged products.
The trend is visible in this week’s launches alone.
New products have targeted everything from AI chip infrastructure to prediction markets and structured-income strategies, demonstrating how fund providers are increasingly turning very specific market themes into exchange-traded products.
The attraction is obvious: ETFs can package complicated strategies into securities that trade throughout the day on an exchange.
But complexity cuts both ways.
A conventional broad-market ETF may be relatively easy to understand: investors own a diversified basket of companies.
A product involving Section 351 tax transactions, private-company derivatives, perpetual futures, options overlays or concentrated AI exposure requires a much closer reading of the prospectus.
Why investors should look beyond the headline
The marketing hooks surrounding these ETFs are easy to understand.
Tax deferral.
OpenAI and Anthropic exposure.
Bitcoin with risk management.
But each headline leaves out important details.
TIH’s tax strategy does not make capital gains disappear.
FRUT does not give investors the same ownership rights as directly owning private shares of OpenAI or Anthropic.
HBIT does not eliminate Bitcoin risk, and its options strategy can reduce both losses and participation in gains.
The ETF boom is therefore becoming less about simply asking “What does this fund own?”
Increasingly, investors also have to ask:
How does the fund obtain that exposure?
What happens when markets move sharply?
What tax consequences arise when the strategy is unwound?
How much of the portfolio depends on derivatives or private-market valuations?
And perhaps most importantly:
Does the complexity actually solve a problem for the investor—or simply create another layer of risk?
That may be the real story behind these three new ETFs.
The ETF wrapper was once synonymous with simple, diversified market exposure. In 2026, it is increasingly being used to package tax engineering, private-company exposure, AI speculation and sophisticated derivatives strategies into a single ticker.
The next phase of the ETF boom may therefore be less about finding another fund—and more about understanding exactly what is hiding underneath the ticker symbol.
