United States Oil Fund

Crude oil is notoriously hard to hold, so USO does it with futures rather than barrels. The fund, run by United States Commodity Funds, buys near-month West Texas Intermediate contracts and rolls them forward as they approach expiry, aiming to track daily moves in the oil price. That structure carries a well-known drag: when longer-dated futures cost more than near ones, each roll sells low and buys high, so over months the fund can lag spot crude even when oil rises. The dynamics turned extreme in 2020, when oil futures briefly went negative and the fund had to spread its holdings across further-out contracts to survive. Traders use it for short-term views on oil, not long-term ownership. Launched in 2006, it remains the best-known oil ETF, but its futures mechanics make it a poor proxy for simply buying and holding crude.

On MyRWA, USO trades tokenized across 13 on-chain venues - see the listings below.