Wall Street has achieved what physicists thought impossible: monetising something that exists in a superposition between “revolutionary breakthrough” and “complete vaporware.”
GraniteShares just launched YieldBoost ETFs for quantum computing darlings D-Wave (QBTS) and Rigetti (RGTI), with the delightfully unsubtle tickers QBY and RGYY. Their strategy? Sell put options on 2x leveraged ETFs of these quantum stocks to generate weekly income distributions.
Let me translate: We're selling insurance on turbocharged versions of companies that might commercialise technology that could work at scale by maybe 2030.
The numbers are perfectly quantum:
• QBTS: $8 billion market cap, $9 million in revenue, -$144 million in losses
• RGTI: Similar trajectory, burning $200M+ annually
• Both stocks: Up 800%+ in the past year
• Distribution rates: Showing 95%+ return of capital (you're getting your own money back, but weekly!)
This is financial engineering at its most audacious. It's derivatives on derivatives on speculation on physics. You're not investing in quantum computers – you're selling volatility insurance on leveraged bets about companies trying to build them.
The truly beautiful part? Quantum computing's core appeal is solving problems regular computers can't. These ETFs have somehow created the inverse: a financial product so convoluted that understanding it requires more computational power than we currently possess.
Props to GraniteShares for recognising that in 2025, if retail investors are buying 2x leveraged quantum stock ETFs with enough volume to generate juicy option premiums, someone should be there to sell them the "income" wrapper.
The $635 million in AUM across their YieldBoost family suggests there's genuine demand for “turn my speculative tech stocks into weekly paychecks” products. They've also launched versions for semiconductors (SEMY), gold miners (NUGY), IonQ (IOYY), and Marathon Digital bitcoin mining (MAAY).
Is this a sustainable income strategy? Who knows – the quantum uncertainty principle applies here too. The answer exists in superposition until you measure your account balance.
At least with quantum computing, when you open the box, there's a 50% chance the cat is alive. With these distributions, there's a 95% chance you're just getting your own cat back, one paw at a time.