BlackRock and Ark Investment, prominent players in the race to launch a spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF), have made a strategic move to reduce their fees, as indicated in a report by Bloomberg.
The report highlights that recent updates to their filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reflect these adjustments to their ETFs. BlackRock has revised its planned charge on its ETF to 0.25%, a marked decrease from the previously announced 0.30%, as shown in the updated filing.
In addition, the asset manager has also cut its initial offer on its spot Bitcoin ETF. Instead of the original 0.20% fee offer, they have now set the fee at 0.12% for the first 12 months or for the first $5 billion in assets, making it even more appealing to investors.
“BlackRock is really going for the jugular here, this is just a brutal cut,” commented Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, during an interview. “They were kind of the favorite anyway because of their brand name and distribution, so for them to cut this low, this soon, is a blow to the rest of the competition.”
In a similar move, Ark Investment has lowered its ETF fee by four basis points to 0.21%, as revealed in the updated filing. The asset manager had previously announced a proposed fee of 0.25% for the fund on Tuesday. Invesco and Galaxy have also followed suit, slashing their planned ETF fees from 0.59% to 0.39%.
This ongoing competition over ETF fees comes amidst anticipation within the cryptocurrency market for SEC’s verdict on the ETF applications. Bloomberg has reported that the regulator is expected to deliver decisions on some of these applications later today.
Previously, the crypto market experienced significant volatility due to a misleading post on the SEC’s X account. This post, which sparked uproar, falsely claimed that the regulator had approved the spot Bitcoin ETF applications. Consequently, Bitcoin’s price initially surged before it subsequently fell once the confusion was rectified.
At last check, Bitcoin was trading just above the $46K area.
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