Behind the Ticker: DRNZ and REX Shares
Anyone paying attention to the news cycle in the last few years has at least heard about drone capabilities and how they’re modernizing combat and defense. This episode of Behind the Ticker features REX Shares’ Bill Birmingham who digs into the only pure play drone ETF on the market, the REX Drone ETF (DRNZ).
In this episode of Behind the Ticker, host Brad Roth, CIO of Thor Financial Technologies, talks with Bill Birmingham, Managing Director at REX Shares, about the firm’s impressive lineup of funds, including the REX Drone ETF (DRNZ), the only pure play drone strategy on the market for investors.
You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any of your preferred streaming platforms.
Investing in the Next Generation of Defense Technology
Bill Birmingham spent most of his career as a buy-side equity research analyst inside hedge funds in and around New York before a genuine personal interest in crypto led him to REX Shares, where he initially helped build out the firm's crypto product suite. His role has since expanded into a broader forward-looking research mandate — find emerging exposures before they're obvious and structure them as investable products. The REX Drone ETF (DRNZ) is the most recent output of that process.
The REX product lineup offers a range of choices for investors, including T-Rex leveraged strategies, Micro Sectors, Spot Solana, XRP with staking, income products, Bitcoin convertible bond strategies, and now DRNZ. The firm uses market and retail flow signals to determine where traders are seeking edge, develop products to meet those needs. Leverage has always been the core capability, but the recent additions reflect a deliberate effort to round out what individual investors can access through a REX wrapper.
Before DRNZ, the only meaningful path to drone exposure ran through military and defense ETFs, which was often diluted due to legacy aerospace positions. DRNZ launched in late 2025 as the only pure-play drone and UAV ETF on the market, built around the conviction that drones represent a generational shift in defense technology — comparable in magnitude to what the tank represented in the 20th century — and that the full commercial opportunity extends well beyond defense into logistics, agriculture, infrastructure inspection, and eventually human transportation.
Notably, Birmingham argues the counter-drone market (CUAS) may carry an even higher growth rate than drones themselves. As such, the fund holds several counter-drone companies, including Australian firm DroneShield, whose radio jamming approach is designed to disable drones without creating a ballistic hazard near civilian populations. Bill frames the offense-versus-defense dynamic as a durable investment cycle, not a one-time procurement event.
The conversation also covers the logic behind the fund's modified market cap weighting, the pure play versus diversified bucket structure, the weight caps, and why the construction is designed to let emerging names perform rather than locking in early leaders before their durability is proven.
To learn more about DRNZ and REX Shares, you can visit their website. While there, you can also sign up for the regular drone newsletter discussed in the episode.
Disclaimer: The market insights, projections, and investment strategies expressed in this article are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of ETF.com. This content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice.
