Aristides Capital LLC

Aristides Capital entered 2026 with a $565 million book and exited it with $462 million — an 18% drawdown that reflects not panic selling but a deliberate sector rotation. The most telling move is the near-complete exit from Bitcoin ETF exposure: the fund sold its unnamed IBIT holding worth $42.1 million, cut its named iShares Bitcoin Trust position by 80%, and dumped its Silver Trust entirely. These are not minor trims — they represent the elimination of a major digital-asset thesis that had anchored the portfolio.

The other side of that trade is the new $73.5 million position in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, which instantly became Aristides’ largest single holding at 15.9% of the book. A second State Street ETF (SPY) follows at 5%, bringing core equity beta to roughly 21% of assets. For a manager that had been loading up on quantum, crypto-adjacent, and speculative tech names, this is a meaningful philosophical shift.