You can hold bitcoin exposure without holding a single coin: through shares that sit in an ordinary brokerage account. Those shares come in three kinds, and they differ in one thing that matters more than the ticker — how much bitcoin stands behind each share, and what else does.
1. Spot bitcoin ETFs
A spot bitcoin ETF holds bitcoin and nothing else of substance; its shares are claims on that pool. iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) held 813,040 BTC on 2026-10-27, which works out to 0.000567 BTC per share — about $46.00 of bitcoin per share at the 2026-10-23 close. The issuer charges a yearly fee; the bitcoin per share drifts down by that fee over time. All US spot ETFs.
2. Bitcoin treasury companies
A treasury company holds bitcoin on its balance sheet as its strategy and raises money — shares, convertible debt, preferred stock — to buy more. Strategy held 848,000 BTC (as of 2026-10-04): 0.00221 BTC per share. Bitcoin per share can rise when a company buys bitcoin with money raised above the value of its existing coins, and fall when it issues shares below it — which is why the figure is worth reading at every filing. Treasury companies.
3. Miners, exchanges and companies that hold bitcoin on the side
A miner earns bitcoin and may keep some: MARA Holdings held 35,577 BTC, 0.0000921 BTC per share. An exchange earns fees from bitcoin activity and may hold some too. And some companies hold bitcoin beside an unrelated business: Tesla held 11,509 BTC — 0.00000291 BTC per share, about $0.24 of bitcoin in a $391.62 share (2026-10-26 close), or $0.60 of bitcoin per $1,000 of stock. For these, the business moves the share far more than the bitcoin does. Miners · exchanges · incidental holders.
How to compare them
Three numbers, each dated: bitcoin per share (bitcoin held ÷ shares outstanding), bitcoin per $1,000 invested (what a position of that size carries at the last close), and bitcoin as a share of market capitalisation (how much of what the market pays for the company is its bitcoin). An ETF sits near 100 % on the last measure by design; a treasury company can sit above or below it; for an incidental holder it is usually a fraction of one percent. Every company page and ETF page on CoinBucha prints all three, with the filing and the close they come from.
None of this says which to own. It says what a share holds, as of when, according to whom. Information, not financial advice.