FIAT Analysis
YieldMax COIN Option Income Strategy ETF — is the distribution income, or your own capital coming back?
Partly returned capital
Over the last 1Y, FIAT's 63.3% distribution yield was offset by a 35.8% NAV decline, leaving a real yield of 4.8%. Only about 8% of the headline yield was economically yours.
From here, FIAT would need a 56% price gain just to return to where it started the window — before any further distributions are counted.
This verdict is generated from fixed thresholds applied to live price and distribution data, not written per fund. Two funds with the same profile always get the same wording.
How FIAT generates income
FIAT is a YieldMax "short" or "bear" strategy ETF. Unlike most YieldMax funds that profit when the underlying rises, FIAT uses put option spreads on COIN to generate income while providing inverse exposure. When COIN declines, the fund benefits from both the option premium and the directional move.
Distributions come from the premiums collected by selling put spreads. These premiums tend to be higher when COIN is volatile, which is why distribution amounts vary significantly from week to week. The fund uses U.S. Treasury securities as collateral for the options positions.
The key risk is that FIAT loses value when COIN rises. It's designed as a tactical income tool for investors who are bearish on COIN, not as a long-term hold. The weekly distributions may include a significant return-of-capital (ROC) component, which is not taxable income but reduces your cost basis.
- Strategy
- Bearish option income on COIN
- Income source
- Put option spread premiums
- Distribution
- Weekly
- Expense ratio
- 0.99%
- Issuer
- YieldMax (Tidal Financial)
FIAT price return since first distribution
The capital half of total return. Read it against the cumulative distributions below — the two together are what a holder actually earned.
Cumulative price return: -89.50%
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Cumulative distributions collected
Running total of per-share distributions since the first payment on record — 57 payments.
Total collected per share since inception: $24.08
Go deeper on FIAT than this page can
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