Unusual Whales parts ways with Subversive on political ETFs

Unusual Whales, the platform known for tracking what members of Congress buy and sell in the stock market, has officially split from Subversive Capital Advisor on the two political ETFs they built together. The funds in question, the Subversive Congressional Democrats Trading ETF (NANC) and the Subversive Congressional Republicans Trading ETF (GOP), launched in February 2023 to considerable fanfare and have since accumulated hundreds of millions in assets.

The breakup was announced on social media, with Unusual Whales confirming the partnership on both $NANC and $GOP has ended.

What these funds actually do

Members of Congress are required to disclose their stock trades under the STOCK Act. Those disclosures are public. Unusual Whales built its brand on scraping, organizing, and publicizing that data so retail investors could see what their elected officials were buying.

The ETFs took that concept and productized it. NANC tracked the equity purchases of Democratic members of Congress and their families, while GOP (originally ticker KRUZ, rebranded in March 2025) did the same for Republicans. Both funds aimed for long-term capital appreciation by effectively mirroring congressional portfolios.

NANC has been the larger of the two funds by a wide margin, with estimated assets under management ranging from $195 million to $260 million. GOP has maintained a smaller asset base. Both charge expense ratios in the 0.72% to 0.74% range, which is significantly pricier than a vanilla S&P 500 index fund that might charge 0.03% to 0.10%. That premium reflects the active management and non-diversified nature of the portfolios.

The partnership was already fraying

Regulatory filings show that Subversive Capital Advisor ceased its advisory role on the ETFs effective August 2, 2024. Tidal Financial Group stepped in as interim adviser and completed a full reorganization of both funds into the Tidal ETF Trust by December 2024.

Throughout this transition, the funds retained Unusual Whales branding, which suggests the data and methodology side of the equation remained intact even as the financial plumbing changed hands.

Tidal Financial Group is a well-known white-label ETF platform that helps smaller issuers launch and operate exchange-traded funds without building out their own infrastructure.

Performance and the bigger picture

Performance results for NANC and GOP have fluctuated relative to the S&P 500 since launch. For an expense ratio north of 0.70%, investors need these funds to consistently beat cheap index alternatives to justify the cost. The funds are also classified as non-diversified, meaning they can concentrate holdings in fewer names.

With Tidal Financial Group already handling advisory and trust responsibilities since late 2024, the operational transition is effectively complete.