Net Asset Value
The per-share value of everything a fund holds, minus what it owes, calculated at one set time each day.
Net asset value is computed by valuing the holdings at a benchmark time, subtracting accrued fees and liabilities, and dividing by shares outstanding. For digital-asset products the valuation usually comes from a published index that aggregates prices across several trading venues at a specified moment, and that methodology is disclosed in the prospectus. The term is borrowed from mutual funds, where investors actually transact at the daily value; for an exchange-traded product it does not mean the price you can buy or sell at, because the shares trade continuously at whatever the market pays. A further wrinkle unique to digital assets is that the underlying trades around the clock, so a single daily value freezes one instant of a market that never closes.
En pratique
A product struck at a 4 p.m. New York benchmark will carry a value that is already stale by the time Asian trading hours have moved the underlying market overnight.
Le malentendu courant
That net asset value is the price you trade at, when on an exchange you trade at the market price for shares, which can sit above or below it.