ETF.com 2026 Awards: The Envelope Please ...
Well, you've voted (a lot of you!) and the winners are in. This years best new ETFs, according to ETF.com community members, include big wins for big firms, a penchant for privates, and a strong dose of active management.
The Winners
| Category | Ticker | Fund Name |
|---|---|---|
| Best New U.S. Equity ETF | VUSV | Vanguard Wellington US Value Active ETF |
| Best New Int'l Equity ETF | VEXC | Vanguard Emerging Markets Ex-China ETF |
| Best New U.S. Fixed Income ETF | PRIV | SPDR SSGA IG Public & Private Credit ETF |
| Best New Int'l Fixed Income ETF | VGMS | Vanguard Multi-Sector Income Bond ETF |
| Best New Crypto/Digital Assets ETF | BITW | Bitwise 10 Crypto Index ETF |
| Best New Commodities ETF | SLVR | Sprott Silver Miners & Physical Silver ETF |
| Best New Active ETF | ALLW | SPDR Bridgewater All Weather ETF |
| Best New Options Income ETF | IAUI | NEOS Gold High Income ETF |
| Best New Thematic ETF | AIPO | Defiance AI & Power Infrastructure ETF |
| Best New Multi-Asset ETF | ALLW | SPDR Bridgewater All Weather ETF |
| Best New Alternatives ETF | FFUT | Fidelity Managed Futures |
| Innovation of the Year | BSOL | Bitwise Solana Staking ETF |
| Best New ETF Overall | ALLW | SPDR Bridgewater All Weather ETF |
What the Winners Tell Us
The Return of the Big Shop
The ETF.com awards this year focused exclusively on brand new funds, so it was reasonable to expect that some upstarts would take a few of the categories. Consider us somewhat surprised that Vanguard, State Street, and Fidelity dominated as strongly as they did, sweeping all but five categories.
Vanguard took two of the six asset-class awards with VUSV — one of it's first active offerings — and VEXC, their sharp-tool ex-China offering. State Street's Bridgewater collaboration (ALLW) swept three categories — Active, Multi-Asset, and the overall Best New ETF, and picked up a fourth win for their PRIV private credit product launched with Apollo. Fidelity claimed Best New Alternatives with FFUT.
After years of smaller issuers dominating the innovation discussion, the behemoths are striking back, and investors seem to be noticing.
Crypto Grows Up
Both crypto awards went to Bitwise — BITW for Best New Crypto ETF and BSOL for Innovation of the Year. Neither is last year's "just stick the coin in the wrapper" launch. BITW is an index strategy offering diversified exposure across the 10 largest crypto assets (something we're already seeing competitors launching), while BSOL stakes 100% of its Solana holdings to generate yield from the network itself through a first-to-market approach to self-staking, removing Cayman Islands subsidiaries and more complex trust structures.
The message was clear: Investors still like what crypto ETFs have to offer, and are willing to look past "buy bitcoin" and at more nuanced exposures. The staking model in particular — where the ETF wrapper captures blockchain-native yield — could reshape how investors think about digital asset exposure.
Private Markets, AI Infrastructure, and the New Thematics
PRIV's win in U.S. Fixed Income signals that the industry sees private credit in an ETF as a frontier worth pursuing, even with some execution and stress-testing questions still unresolved. On the equity side, AIPO's win for Best New Thematic ETF reflects AI's status as "rent-free occupant" in advisor narratives in 2025. But investors are smart enough to realize it's not just about the chips and frontier models — it's about the power plants, utilities, and infrastructure needed to keep the AI carousel running.
Alternatives Go Institutional
The alternatives winners — Fidelity's FFUT and the runner-up group featuring Invesco's managed futures and Return Stacked's multi-strategy approach — point to a trend: increasingly sophisticated institutional strategies in ETF wrappers. Managed futures, once the province of high-net-worth SMAs, now trade for under $10 a share with embedded leverage. The commodities win for Sprott's SLVR, which uniquely combines physical silver with silver miner equity, reflects a similar impulse — offer investors something they genuinely can't get elsewhere in a convenience package, and they'll show up.
The ALLW Sweep
If one fund defines the 2025 vintage, it's ALLW. The State Street Bridgewater All Weather ETF won three categories and gathered over $1 billion in its first year. Ray Dalio's risk-parity framework — originally designed for Bridgewater's institutional clients in the 1990s — is now available for the price of a few shares. It's the kind of ETF the industry was built for: taking a proven institutional strategy and putting it in everyone's hands. The voters agreed.
For details on each category winner, see our individual award articles. For more on the ETF.com Awards process, go here.
