You’ll notice that in the five-year period, gold and the S&P 500 were neck-and-neck, and BTC zoomed ahead. In contrast, over the past year, gold and bitcoin were neck-and-neck leaders, while the S&P 500 lagged behind. Below are two charts representing this data for both periods.
5-year historical returns of BTC, gold (GLD) and the S&P 500
1-year historical returns of BTC, gold (GLD) and S&P 500
My key takeaway from this data: Gold and BTC are both good diversifiers. In years past, investors preferred diversifying with gold rather than BTC primarily because of the wild swings in the crypto market. However, BTC’s volatility is decreasing as institutional adoption grows. According to research by Ark Invest, BTC’s realized volatility has been declining since 2011, and it now stands at an all-time low, with lower tops through the years. Here’s what that looks like.
The bottom line for me: BTC may be increasingly be used as a portfolio diversifier along with or instead of gold for these reasons:
- BTC’s strong returns
- Decreasing volatility
- Ease of investing through crypto ETFs
- ETFs are eligible for registered accounts such as the TFSA, RRSP, RESP and FHSA
Canada’s (and the world’s) first Solana ETFs
Canada continues to innovate and lead in crypto with the launch of the world’s first Solana (SOL) spot ETFs. Not just one, but four Solana ETFs launched on April 16, 2025. This makes SOL only the second altcoin (after ethereum) to be available through an ETF. An altcoin—short for “alternative coin”—refers to all the crypto coins apart from BTC.
Canada is readying spot Solana ETFs to launch this week after regulator gave green light to multiple issuers incl Purpose, Evolve, CI and 3iQ. ETFs will include staking via TD pic.twitter.com/FSw149Xkm4
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) April 14, 2025
Solana (SOL) is a fast, high-performance, low-fee blockchain widely considered Ethereum’s top competitor. Developers build Web3 projects on the Solana blockchain. Real-world applications that run on Solana include non-fungible tokens (NFTs), brand loyalty programs and the tokenization of real estate assets. The (in)famous $TRUMP crypto token was built on the Solana blockchain.
The Solana blockchain was launched in March 2020 and is the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. As of April 28, 2025, Solana’s market cap stands at about USD$75.7 billion.
So far, two of the new ETFs (SOLL and SOLQ) offer investors staking rewards, too. Staking is a way to earn yield on your cryptocurrency to boost your returns. If SOL rises in the long term, investors could benefit in two ways: the capital gain from the price of the underlying SOL coins and the staking rewards earned by the fund and passed on to investors.
Here’s what you need to know about the new SOL spot ETFs in Canada:
View a list of crypto spot ETFs in Canada.
